Kellys Golf History

Kenny Robinson - RIP

2012-01-10T03:09:00.000-08:00

Kenny Robinson and Raymond Floyd

Kenny Robinson – The Keeper of Tee Times

At one time Kenny Robinson was the most important person in the life of the most powerful movers and shakers at the Jersey Shore. Bankers, businessmen, sports celebrities and casino owners all turned to Kenny Robinson when they wanted a tee time at the private, exclusive and venerable Atlantic City Country Club in its hey-days.

Under the job title of Caddy Master, Starter and Pro-Shop Manager, Kenny assigned the tee times, arranged the foursomes and introduced those club members and guests who wanted to meet, to play, or play together.

If anyone needed anything Kenny was the go-to guy when it came to golf, especially during tournaments when golf professionals, the best amateurs, sports celebrities and just regular guys were mixing it up on the course, the pro-shop and locker room.

Even on his day off every morning Kenny Robinson routinely made his way over to the Northfield clubhouse of the Atlantic City Country Club to feed Bogie the clubhouse cat, who resided there for 20 years.

Kenny’s went to the ACCC every morning for many years longer than Bogie, worked there in a half dozen various capacities over the years, and was left with the job of maintaining the history and traditions of the club. The history is long and embroidered, while the traditions are few but steadfast, one of which includes feeding Bogie the cat, who could usually be found either napping or sitting sentry on the shelf next to the bag room door. From where he sat, if cats could talk, Boggy saw it all, but so it seems, did Kenny Robinson. Sitting down with him to talk about his experiences in golf was a lesson in history, traditions and the growth of the game.

Born near Philadelphia, the son of a Vaudeville entertainer and a Broadway showgirl, Kenny Robinson first became associated with the game of golf when still in school while caddying at the Old York Road golf club in North Philly.

Playing the harmonica was a family tradition, and Kenny and his brothers played often, for both fun and profit, and broke their father’s marathon harmonica playing record at a charity event in the 1930s. Once in awhile, like on St. Patrick’s Day, Kenny was persuaded to play “Danny Boy” and a few other appropriate tunes.

After serving in the Army in Korea, from where he returned a decorated hero, Kenny continued to work in Vaudeville. He had left a job working at the historic Country Club at Brookline, Massachusetts when he came to Atlantic City to entertain at the old Globe and Capitol Burlesque Theaters. That's when he met Leo Fraser at a boardwalk hotel event in 1969.

From one Army vet to another, Leo Fraser asked Robinson to come to work for him at the Atlantic City Country Club. Robinson took him up on the offer and he never left. Taking on practically every job around the clubhouse, Kenny worked as a housekeeper, maintenance man, caddy, caddy master, starter and pro shop manager.

When the most distinguished and influential members of the community were also members of the elite, private club, Kenny knew them all and they knew Kenny, and depended on him for their tee times. His job also allowed him to meet many celebrities who played the course, including Bob Hope and Perry Como and others he knew from the old Vaudeville circuit who came around as casino headliners. Kenny treated everybody the same, whether you were rich, a celebrity or a hack who just liked to play golf.

Of all the championship tournaments and celebrated golf events he’s been associated with, Kenny said the 1980 PGA Senior Tournament was the most memorial. “Seeing all of those guys get together was something else. The champions of the game who hadn’t played together in awhile were happy to just see each other again.”

That was even before Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicholas were old enough to play as seniors. Among those who were there included Al Besselink, Sam Snead, Art Wall, Sr., Tony Pena, Tommy Bolt and the Herbert brothers. As the third senior event of the year, just after the Senior Open, that tournament is considered the first and beginning of the PGA Senior Tour, now called the Champions Tour, one of the most prestigious golf tours in the world. That tournament also raised money for charity – Juvenile Diabetes, and was sponsored by Bally Casino, whose parent company purchased the club from the Fraser family.

It was also the tournament that the longtime course single round record of 63 was set by Charlie Sifford, one of the first blacks to play on the PGA tour. It was a record that was only eclipsed by Frank Dobbs, who shot a 62 while overcoming a boggy at a Duke Delcher tournament. But Kenny didn’t think the course records would be seriously threatened by any new, hot shot youngster, but rather, the seniors, if they ever hold another senior tournament at Atlantic City again.

A profile published in Golf Styles magazine entitled, “Keeping the Past Alive,” says that, “He's been at the club for almost 40 years and watched the evolution of a local shrine from its heyday as an elite private golf club to one now open to the public. When Kenny Robinson arrived in 1969, Atlantic City Country Club was yet in its prime - hosting dignitaries, golf legends, celebrities and champions of industry. The 74 year old has been a fixture at the club longer than anyone, serving as caddie, pro shop manager, starter, ambassador and historian.”

"Even though we are now open to the public, it's retained a private club atmosphere," Robinson said. "The clubhouse has changed little over the last 50 years or so. At the front door is the bell that rang for the last trolley returning hotel guests to Atlantic City."

“Robinson recalls many tales of colorful characters and people he's known during his time at the club, mentioning such stars as Perry Combo, Joe Namath, Bob Hope, Bert Lancaster and many others who frequented the facility.”

"It was the most sought after club to get a game and a most congenial place to visit. The service, help and food have always been excellent. the recipe for our famous crab cakes, still served today, came from Leo's wife Doris Fraser," added Robinson.

Kenny was a big part of the club, especially after Leo Fraser died and Jimmy and Doug Fraser and Bonnie and Don Siok saw it through its best growth years for the next decade.

ROBINSON, KENNETH F. 78 - Egg Harbor Township and formerly of Villas; passed away on Thursday, January 5, 2012 at AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center after a lengthy illness. Born in Montgomery County, PA and formerly of Buffalo, NY; he relocated to Southern New Jersey in the early 1970's.

Kenny began working at the Atlantic City Country Club (a job he would have for the next forty years) working for the Frasier and Siok family. He quickly endeared himself to all with his amiable personality and his amazing knowledge of the club's history. In the mid seventies, Ken took the position of caddy master and director of outside operations and held that position until 2010.

Kenny had a gift of making everyone feel special, from celebrities that visited the club to members and fellow employees. He was also known for his love of all animals. His loyal friend and companion Bogey the cat was at his side for more than 20 years, and lays to rest on the country club grounds.

Kenny's fondest memories were in the South Jersey area where he met the love of his life Mary Ann and then married in 1980.

Prior to his lengthy career at ACCC, Kenny led a very interesting life. After serving his country courageously in the Korean conflict as a teenage, he returned home to follow his father's footsteps as an entertainer. Kenny and his brothers formed the "Verstiles" a harmonica trio. All were accomplished musicians and toured extensively. Their talents earned them television spots on the Ed Sullivan Show. To this day they hold a world record recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records for playing 53 hours non-stop; breaking the old record of 51 hours held by Kenny's father Paul. In the process, they raised thousands of dollars for cerebral palsy research. After the trio stopped touring, Kenny remained in show business working as a straight man in a two man comedy team. He also acted as a host and emcee for burlesque reviews under the name "Kenny Dee", working venues all over the northeast and mid west.

Kenny will be sadly missed by all who knew him and loved him â€" family, extended family, friends, and the crew at Charlie's Bar where he was a regular.

Ken was preceded in death by his wife Mary Ann Robinson, and two brothers: Dale and Richard. He is survived by his son James Robinson; his stepson Dan DeGeorge; his stepdaughter Karen Romo DeGeorge; his daughter-in-law Cindy Staats; nine grandchildren; and three great grandchildren. Kenny's last wishes were simple and without fanfare. Instead of a ceremony or flowers, Kenny asked that a donation be made in his memory to any local no-kill Animal shelter.

[Ocean City, NJ Humane Society - 1 Shelter Road, P.O. Box 1254, Ocean City, NJ 08226 (609) 399-2018 info@hsocnj.org]

To share condolences, please visit www.evoyfuneralhome.com.

South Jersey Golf Timeline

2011-11-11T12:18:00.000-08:00

1457 - Word “golf” first appears in Scottish law forbidding it.

1567 - Mary Queen of Scotts plays Edinburg’s Musselburg Links

1873 - Royal Montreal Club founded in Canada.

1888 - John Reid, Scottish amateur, lays out three hole course at Yonkers, NY

1891 - Harry C. Groome introduces golf at Philadelphia Country Club

1893 - Marcellus Cox and Montgomery Wilcox layout course in Devon, Pa. that doesn’t survive.

1894 -

Philadelphia Cricket Club opens 9 hole course.

In September, William G. Lawrence wins a "national amateur championship" at Newport (R.I.)Golf Club.In October, Laurence B. Stoddard wins a "national amateur championship" at St. Andrew's Golf Club.

C.B. Macdonald, runner-up in both events, calls for the formation of a governing body to run a universally recognized national championship.

The Amateur Golf Association of the United States - soon to be called the United States Golf Association - is formed on Dec. 22. Charter members are Newport Golf Club, Shinnecock Hills Golf Club, The Country Club (Brookline, Mass.), St. Andrew's Golf Club (Yonkers, N.Y.), and Chicago Golf Club.

America's first golf magazine, The Golfer, is published in New York, N.Y.

1895 -

Merion Cricket Club opens course.

Charles B. Macdonald wins the first official U.S. Amateur championship at Newport

Golf Club. The first U.S. Open is held the next day at the same club, almost as an afterthought to the Amateur. Horace Rawlins wins the $150 first prize over a field of 11.

Mrs. Charles S. Brown (Lucy Barnes) wins the first U.S. Women's Amateur championship at the Meadow Brook Club in Hempstead, N.Y.

Golf in America: A Practical Manual, by James Lee, is the first golf book written in the U.S.

1896 -

James Foulis wins the second official U.S. Open, held at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club.

John Shippen, an African-American professional, and his friend Oscar Bonn, a Shinnecock Indian, compete in the U.S. Open despite a threatened boycott by the other contestants. Shippen finished fifth.

Cape May Golf Club formed – now defunct, located on west side of Lafayette St. as you come into town. Club house is a big square building that's now apartments, and you can can see some fairways that are now lawns.

1897 -

John Reid, Scottish professional who previously worked at Philadelphia CC, lays out the Northfield Links of the Atlantic City Country Club for Atlantic City Boardwalk hotel owners.

Yale wins the first collegiate golf championship.

Joe Lloyd is victorious in the third U.S. Open, held at Chicago Golf Club.
H.J. Whigham wins his second U.S. Amateur

1898 -

Beatrix Hoyt wins her third straight U.S. Women's Amateur at Ardsley Club in New York. Two years later, she retires at the age of 20.

Coburn Haskell and Bertram Work design and patent a wound-rubber golf ball, which flies farther than the gutta-percha ball.

The United States Open expands to 72 holes from 36 and is held for the first time at a separate course from the Amateur.

First ACCC club championships won by Mr. and Mrs. Milton Work, also club bridge champions.

First ACCC amateur golf championship won by Mr. Francis H. Bohlen, also first Philadelphia CC champion in 1899.

Mr. Bohlen attends the 1898 US Amateur championship in Morristown, NJ

Harriet Curtis attracts large local gallery to exhibition at ACCC. With sister Margaret, the Curtis sisters place the Curtis Cup in to competition.

ACCC members took a train to Cape May to play the members of a Cape May golf club that no longer exists.

Date? according to USGA. More probably 1903-05 - The term "birdie" is coined at Atlantic City Country Club in New Jersey when Ab Smith says a fellow member hit a "bird of a shot" and suggests a double payoff for scoring one under par on a hole.

William "Robbie" Robinson named ACCC golf pro

1900 -

Estimated 250,000 Americans play golf.

British star Harry Vardon shows Americans how to play the game. In the country for an exhibition tour, he wins the U.S. Open over fellow Englishman J.H. Taylor. Vardon becomes the first sports figure in history to endorse a product, using his "Vardon Flyer" ball througout the tour. Visits ACCC.

Americans Charles Sands and Margaret Abbott win gold medals in golf in the Olympic Games in Paris.

U.S. Amateur Championship held at ACCC – won by Walter J. Travis, who took up golf in 1896 at age 35, wins the U.S. Amateur with Haskell ball at ACCC.

The Ozone Club formed by group of amateur golfers dedicated to playing once a month and continue to do so today.

1901

Walter Travis wins his second straight U.S. Amateur Championship and publishes an instruction book,Practical Golf . He's the first to win a major championship playing a Haskell wound-rubber ball.

Willie Anderson ties Alex Smith with a record-high 331 in the U.S. Open and takes the playoff with an 85.

Pinehurst resort in North Carolina opens the first nine holes of its No.2 course.

1902
Willie Anderson wins the Western Open with a 299 total; the first time 300 is broken for 72 holes in an American event.

1903

Walter Travis, known as "The Old Man," wins his third U.S. Amateur at age 41.
Oakmont Country Club opens near Pittsburgh, Pa., quickly gaining a reputation as one of the nation's toughest tests because of its penal style of architecture.

Willie Anderson sets a U.S. Open record with a 72 in the final round and a 303 total.
Americans claim Australian-born

Walter Travis as the first of their own to win the British Amateur. He uses the center-shafted Schenectady putter.

December? Term “birdie” coined at Atlantic City Country Club.

1905

Twenty-five-year-old Willie Anderson wins his third consecutive U.S. Open and fourth in five years. It is also his last Open victory; he dies in 1910.
Harry Vardon publishes The Complete Golfer , which explains, among other things, the Vardon grip.

1906

Three-time runner-up Alex Smith finally wins the U.S. Open, becoming the first to break 300 for the 72-hole championship. His brother, Willie, is second.

In Great Britain, William Taylor applies for a patent on a dimple design for golf ball covers.

1907

Pinehurst Resort in North Carolina adds the back nine holes to its No.2 course. It is the seminal work of Donald Ross, who goes on to design hundreds of courses in the United States.

Margaret Curtis beats her sister Harriot in an all-in-the-family final of the U.S. Women's Amateur.

James “Jolly Jim” Fraser arrives in New York from Aberdeen, Scotland. Takes professional job at Cortland Park, NY, the first public golf course in America.
1908

Jerry Travers wins his second consecutive U.S. Amateur.

Three-time U.S. Amateur champion Walter Travis shows he's jack-of-all-trades by founding American Golfer magazine and serving as its first editor. He's also a golf course designer.

1909

Robert Gardner becomes the youngest U.S. Amateur champion at age 19.
New U.S. President William Howard Taft is the first golf-loving occupant of the White House.

The USGA rules that caddies, caddie-masters and greenkeepers past the age of 16 are professionals. The age would be raised to 18 in 1930, 21 in 1945, until the ruling was rescinded in 1963.

1910

Leo Fraser born.

Arthur F. Knight obtains a patent for a seamed, tubular, steel golf shaft. Steel shafts, however, are still illegal.

The R&A bans the center-shafted putter, while the USGA keeps it legal, marking the first time that the USGA diverges from an R&A equipment ruling.

Alex Smith wins his second U.S. Open by beating his other brother, Macdonald.
18 year old John McDermott wins Philadelphia Open and then ties MacDonald and Alex Smith to force a three-way play-off at U.S. Open at Merion Cricket Club in Philadelphia?

– McDermott then takes job at Merchantville CC.

1911

Johnny McDermott named ACCC golf pro, signals the end of dominance by Scottish-born professionals in early American golf by becoming the first native to win the U.S. Open. At 19, he's also the youngest winner ever.

Englishman Harold Hilton is the first player to win the British and U.S. Amateur in the same year.

McDermott wins U.S. Open at Chicago Golf Club

The USGA increased yardage for determining par: Three - up to 225 yards Four - 225 to 425 yards Five - 426 to 600 yards Six - 601 yards and over.

1912

John Ball wins his eighth British Amateur championship - still a record number of victories in a major event.
The USGA introduces a handicap limit of six on entrants for the U.S. Amateur.

McDermott defends title at Buffalo NY
1913

Twenty-year-old American amateur Francis Ouimet stages the game's biggest upset, beating English stars Harry Vardon and Ted Ray in a playoff to win the U.S. Open at The Country Club in Brookline, Mass. The resultant headlines spark a surge of interest in the game in America.

Jerry Travers wins his fourth U.S. Amateur.

McDermott defeats field by eight strokes at Shawnee

Ouiment wins U.S. Open at Country Club at Bookline, Mass.
1914

McDermott goes to England

Harry Vardon wins his sixth British Open, one more than each of the other two members of the "Great Triumvirate," J.H. Taylor and James Braid.

Walter Hagen, a stylish 21-year-old professional, wins the first of his two U. S. Open titles, leading after every round.

Francis Ouimet becomes the first with career U.S. Open and Amateur titles, beating Jerry Travers in the final of the U.S. Amateur.

October 31 – McDermott passes out in ACCC pro shop.

Clarence Hackney assumes pro position and holds it until 1940.

Seaview CC – founded by Clarence Geist. Wilfred Reid named first pro.

Seaview’s 18-hole Bay Course was partially designed by Hugh Wilson in 1914.

Donald Ross completed the 6,300 yard Seaview Bay course.

1915

Jerry Travers adds the U.S. Open to his four U.S. Amateur crowns, then retires at age 28.
All British and Canadian championships are suspended because of World War I. They resume in Canada in 1919 and Britain in 1920.

1916

The amateur run on the U.S. Open continues. Chick Evans is the third amateur to win in four years, shooting a record 286. He is also the first to capture the U.S. Open and Amateur titles in the same year.

Fourteen-year-old Bobby Jones makes his U.S. Amateur debut, reaching the quarterfinals at Merion Cricket Club.

The Professional Golfers' Association of America is formed in January. In October, Jim Barnes wins the first PGA Championship, taking the $500 first prize.

James “Jolly Jim” Fraser named golf professional at Seaview.

1917

The USGA championships (U.S. Open, U.S. Amateur, U.S. Women's Amateur) and the PGA Championship are suspended in 1917 and 1918 because of World War I.

Bobby Jones, 15, wins the Southern Amateur.

Sonny Fraser born. His mother practiced putting earlier in the day.

Par yardage is again changed: Three - up to 250 yards Four - 251 to 445 yards
Five - 446 to 600 yards Six - more than 600 yards

1918

George Crump, founder and designer of Pine Valley Golf Club, dies; only 14 holes of the New Jersey course have been completed. The remaining holes open within a few years.
Among the fund-raising tours by professional and amateur golfers for the war effort, the Dixie Kids -- featuring Atlanta teenagers Perry Adair, Watts Gunn, Bobby Jones and Alexa Stirling -- raise $150,000 for the Red Cross.

1919

Pebble Beach Golf Links opens on California's Monterey Peninsula.
The first golf book to use high-speed sequence photography - Picture Analysis of Golf Strokes , by Jim Barnes - is published.

First International Golf Match US vs Canada

US meets British officials of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews Rules Committee

1920

Second International Golf Match US vs Canada

George Herbert Walker Pres. of USGA

James “Jolly Jim” Fraser and Walter Hgen and 10 year old Leo Fraser as caddy, defeat Harry Vardon and Ted Ray in exhibition match at what is now the Brookside Club in Pottstown, Pa.

Harry Vardon, 50, competing in his third U.S. Open, plays the last seven holes in even fives to finish second, one stroke behind his English countryman, 43-year-old Ted Ray.

Ray becomes the oldest man to win the Open (a record that will stand until 1963).

Alexa Stirling wins her third consecutive Women's Amateur (1916, 1919, 1920 -- the championship wasn't held in 1917 and 1918).

The USGA creates the Green Section for turfgrass research.

The USGA and R&A agree to a standard ball - 1.62 inches in diameter and 1.62 ounces.

1921

Jim Barnes romps to a nine-stroke win in the U.S. Open and President Warren Harding, a USGA Executive Committee member, presents the trophy at Columbia Country Club near Washington, D.C.

Jock Hutchison wins the British Open using deep-grooved irons; they were banned four years later.

Willie Park, Jr. comes to Atlantic City and redesigns the course, adds nine more (for 27) and lays out the Ocean City-Somers Point golf course, now Greate Bay.

1922

The USGA invited all golfing nations to send teams to compete in the Match, but no country was able to accept that year.

Early in 1922, The R&A announced that it would send a team to compete for the Walker Cup at the National Golf Links of America, Walker’s home club, in Southampton, N.Y.

A Cinderella story: 20-year-old Gene Sarazen, a sixth-grade dropout from a working-class family, wins the U.S. Open and PGA Championship.

An admission fee ($1) is charged for the first time at the U.S. Open.

Walter Hagen becomes the first American-born player to win the British Open.

Intended for all interested countries, the first Walker Cup match between amateurs from the United States and Great Britain (the only taker) is held at National Golf Links of America in Southampton, N.Y. The United States wins.

Public-course golfers get their own tournament - the USGA's Amateur Public Links Championship.

Glenna Collett wins her first of six U.S. Women's Amateur titles.

Walter Hagen is the first professional to found a golf equipment company under his name.

President Warren G. Harding, dedicated golfer and friend of Seaview founder Geist, played a round of golf on the Bay Course. Harding made frequent excursions to Seaview and was known to be fond of wagers. It was said that Harding placed a bet on every swing.

Seaview professional James “Jolly Jim” Fraser dies in automobile accident with Shore Road trolley

1923

Winged Foot Golf Club opens, with 36 holes designed by A.W. Tillinghast. Designers like Tillinghast, Alister MacKenzie and Donald Ross make the 1920's the Golden Age of golf architecture.

After several near-misses in the U.S. Open and U.S. Amateur, Bobby Jones, 21, claims his first major title by beating Bobby Cruickshank in a playoff for the U.S. Open.

The Texas Open, in its second year, has golf's biggest purse yet - $6,000. Walter Hagen wins. The tournament is part of a growing winter circuit for the professionals.

Gene Sarazen beats Walter Hagen in a classic 38-hole final at the PGA Championship when a tree stops Sarazen's ball from going out of bounds on the deciding hole.

1924

Steel-shafted clubs are permitted in the United States by the USGA as of April 11; the R&A continues to ban their use in Great Britain until 1929.

Bobby Jones wins the first of his five U.S. Amateur titles, at Merion Cricket Club in Ardmore, Pa.

Walter Hagen's unmatched reign begins in the PGA Championship - he wins the first of four consecutive titles.

The USGA introduces sectional qualifying rounds for the U.S. Open.

1925

Willie Macfarlane shoots a record 67 in the second round of the U.S. Open and goes on to defeat Bobby Jones in a playoff.

The first complete fairway irrigation system is installed at Brook Hollow Golf Club in Dallas, Texas.

The Havemeyer Trophy, which goes to the U.S. Amateur champion, is destroyed in a fire at Bobby Jones' home club, East Lake, in Atlanta.

1926

Leo Fraser, age 16, quits school and moves to Michigan where he works as golf pro at Saginaw.

Bobby Jones is the first to win the U.S. and British Opens in the same year.

Walter Hagen beats Leo Diegel in the final of the PGA Championship. The night before, when a carousing Hagen is told his opponent had long since gone to bed, he replies, "Yes, but he isn't sleeping."

Walter Hagen wallops Bobby Jones, 12 and 11, in a 72-hole challenge match billed as the "World Championship."

Jess Sweetser is the first American to win the British Amateur since Walter Travis in 1904 - and the first United States native ever.

1927

The Seaview Pines Course, designed by the architectural firm of Toomey and Flynn, was initially a nine-hole course sculpted in the scenic pinelands on the west side of our Atlantic City resort. The course was completed in 1929.

Walter Hagen wins his fourth consecutive PGA Championship.

The United State Department of Agriculture says it has developed "the perfect putting green grass" -- creeping bent.

Bobby Jones wins the British Open and U.S. Amateur, and publishes Down the Fairway.
The United States whips Great Britain 9-1/2 to 2-1/2, in the inaugural Ryder Cup match at Worcester Country Club in Massachusetts.

1928

Cypress Point Golf Club opens in Pebble Beach, Calif.

Walter Hagen wins the British Open. He would take his final title in the championship the following year at Muirfield.

Bobby Jones and Glenna Collett continue to dominate amateur golf. Jones wins the U.S. Amateur final by a 10 and 9 margin. Collett claims the Women's Amateur, 13 and 12.

1929

Great Britain evens the fledgling Ryder Cup series by winning on its home turf at Moortown, England.

Twenty-year-old Horton Smith sweeps out of Missouri to win eight professional tournaments, including four in a row in the spring.

The world's two best women amateurs meet in the British Ladies Amateur. Great Britain's Joyce Wethered beats America's Glenna Collett, 3 and 1, at the Old Course in St. Andrews, Scotland, claiming her fourth British title.

The U.S. Amateur goes to the West Coast for the first time, at Pebble Beach Golf Links. Bobby Jones is the victim of a first-round upset.

1930

Bobby Jones wins the Grand Slam - the U.S. Open, U.S. Amateur, British Open and British Amateur - then retires at age 28.

Glenna Collett wins her third consecutive U.S. Women's Amateur.

The onset of the Depression brings a slowdown in golf-course construction, which lasts through the end of World War II.

Seventeen-year-old Ben Hogan registers as a professional at the Texas Open.

Bobby Jones completes “Grand Slam,” builds Augusta National, home of the Masters, and hires Ed Dudley to be first pro. Dudley later becomes ACCC golf pro.

1931

The USGA mandates use of a larger and lighter ball (1.68 inches and 1.55 ounces). This so-called "balloon ball" is very unpopular, and after only one year the USGA increases the allowed weight to 1.62 ounces, keeping the size at 1.68 inches. Meanwhile, the R&A stays with the 1.62-inch, 1.62-ounce ball.

The concave-faced wedge is banned, but Gene Sarazen perfects his design of the sand wedge, with a wide flange, which will remain legal.

Bobby Jones films a series of instructional movies, How I Play Golf.

Billy Burke is the first to win a U.S. Open using steel shafts. It takes him seventy-two extra holes (two thirty-six-hole playoffs) to beat George Von Elm.

1932

Gene Sarazen wins the U.S. Open and British Open, with record scores of 286 and 283, respectively. He finishes the U.S. Open with a record 66.

The first Curtis Cup Match, between women amateurs of the U.S. and Great Britain, is won by the United States, 5-1/2 to 3-1/2.

1933

Augusta National Golf Club, founded by Bobby Jones, has its grand opening in January.
Johnny Goodman is the fifth, and most recent, amateur to win the U.S. Open.

1934

Horton Smith wins the first Augusta National Invitational. Its name will be changed to The Masters in 1939.

Lawson Little wins the U.S. Amateur and British Amateur, the "Little Slam," a feat he will repeat in 1935.

England's Henry Cotton ties the British Open record with a 67 in the first round and breaks it with a 65 in the second. His victory is the first by a Briton in eleven years.

Virginia Van Wie wins the U.S. Women's Amateur for the third consecutive year.
Joseph C. Dey, Jr., is appointed Executive Secretary of the USGA. He will hold the post for thirty-four years.

Helen Hicks becomes one of the first women to turn professional. There are no professional tournaments, but she promotes products for Wilson-Western Sporting Goods Company.

1935

Gene Sarazen strikes the most famous shot in the history of The Masters - a double eagle on Augusta National's fifteenth hole, which ties Craig Wood during the final round. Sarazen wins the playoff the next day.

Glenna Collett Vare wins her sixth U.S. Women's Amateur.

1936

Lawson Little turns professional instead of going for a third consecutive U.S. Amateur - British Amateur sweep.

Unheralded Tony Manero closes with a 67 to win the U.S. Open with a record 282.

In winning the U.S. Amateur, Johnny Fischer is the last to capture a national championship using hickory-shafted clubs.

1937

Sam Snead bursts onto the professional circuit with five victories.

The first Bing Crosby National Pro-Am is held at Rancho Santa Fe in San Diego. It will move to Pebble Beach in 1947.

Byron Nelson wins The Masters, making up six strokes on fellow Texan Ralph Guldahl on the twelfth and thirteenth holes of the final round.

Denny Shute wins his second consecutive PGA Championship.

The United States wins the Ryder Cup on British soil for the first time.

1938

A new USGA Rule limits players to fourteen clubs. Some players (e.g., Lawson Little) have been carrying as many as twenty-five. The Rule is designed to restore shot-making skill.

Sam Snead wins eight tournaments and shatters the earnings record with $19,534.

Ralph Guldahl wins his second consecutive U.S. Open, and third consecutive Western Open.

Patty Berg, twice a runner-up, wins the U.S. Women's Amateur at age twenty.

1939

The Ryder Cup is canceled because of the war in Europe.

Byron Nelson wins the U.S. Open in a playoff over Craig Wood and Denny Shute after Sam Snead makes an eight on the seventy-second hole.

1940

Clarence Hackney, ACCC pro since 1914 dies.

Charles Hofner named ACCC pro.

The Walker Cup is canceled because of the war. The British Open and Amateur are also canceled.

Ben Hogan wins his first individual title, the North & South Open, then takes the next two events as well.

Jimmy Demaret, the most colorful golfer of his generation, wins the first of three Masters titles despite Lloyd Mangrum's tournament-record round of 64. Jimmy Demaret, Ben Hogan, Bing Crosby, and Gene Sarazen all graced the green at Seaview in a tournament together. Crosby said that golf was his great passion, yet all but Bing appeared in the star-studded line-up at Seaview for the 1942 PGA Championship

Ed "Porky" Oliver would have tied for first in the U.S. Open, but he is disqualified from the playoff. While trying to beat a storm, Oliver and five other players start the final round before their scheduled starting times. Lawson Little defeats Gene Sarazen for the title.

Bryon Nelson beats Sam Snead, one up, in a match of titans for the PGA Championship.

1941

Craig Wood ends a string of frustrating runner-up finishes in major events by winning both The Masters and the U.S. Open.

The USGA develops a machine for testing golf-ball velocity at impact. Plans for limiting initial velocity are put on hold until after the war.

1942

Seaview Country Club hosted the PGA Championship where Sam Snead captured his first major. On the final day of the match, Snead holed a spectacular 60 foot chip on the 37th hole for birdie to secure a 2-1 victory over Jim Turnesa. PGA Newsweek Magazine sports writ-ers’ state "The National PGA Tour of 1942 will go down in history as the hottest ever." Sam Snead wins the PGA Championship. He had been granted a delay of several days before induction into the Navy so he could play in the event.

A Rule change authorizes players to stop play on their own initiative if they consider themselves endangered by lightning.

The USGA cancels all its championships for the duration of the war. The PGA of America continues its Tour schedule, though it is an abbreviated one.

The United States government halts the manufacturing of golf equipment.

Byron Nelson beats Ben Hogan in a playoff for The Masters.

Ben Hogan wins the Hale America National Open, a charity event for the Navy Relief Fund and the USO. He shoots a second-round 62 en route to a 17-under-par total.

1942-44 – U.S. Army Signal Corps takes over ACCC Clubhouse.

1943
The war takes a heavy toll on competitive golf. The PGA Tour is reduced to only three tournaments. There is no PGA Championship.

The Masters is canceled for the duration of the war.

1944

The PGA Tour is back up to 22 tournaments, though many players remain in military service.

The Tam O'Shanter Open offers a record purse of $42,000 and is won by Byron Nelson, who is exempt from military service because of a blood disorder.

Ed Dudley becomes ACCC pro.

Sonny Fraser syndicate (John B. Kelly, “Hap” Farley, et al) purchase ACCC from AC Hotel owners.

Sonny Fraser inaugurates the Sonny Fraser Invitational Amateur tournament, and wins.

1945

Sonny Fraser, John B. Kelly, “Hap” Farley et al. build AC Race Track and bring first legal gambling to South Jersey.

Leo Fraser returns home after WWII, purchases ACCC (w/ Carroll Rosenbloom)

Dr. Carey Middelcoff wins the Sonny Fraser tournament.

Byron Nelson wins a record 11 consecutive tournaments from March through August, and 18 during the year. While fields aren't at full strength, Sam Snead and Ben Hogan each are on hand for part of the year.

Ben Hogan sets a 72-hole scoring record with 261; two weeks later, Byron Nelson breaks it with 259.

1946

Wilfred Reid becomes ACCC pro.

Ben Hogan wins 13 PGA Tour events, including the PGA Championship, but loses The Masters and U.S. Open by one stroke.

Sam Snead wins the British Open at the Old Course in St. Andrews, Scotland. On passing the course on a train on his way to the championship, Snead declares, "That looks like an old, abandoned golf course."

The first U.S. Women's Open is held, and the only one ever waged at match play. Patty Berg is the champion.

Byron Nelson retires at age 34 after winning six tournaments during the year.
Grace Kelly, later known as Princess Grace of Monaco, celebrated her 16th birthday at Seaview in the Oval Room

1947

The USGA revises and simplifies the Rules of Golf, going from 61 Rules to 21. The R & A doesn't go along, however.
South African Bobby Locke storms onto the PGA Tour with six victories.
The U.S. Open is televised - but only locally - on KSD-TV in St. Louis.
Babe Didrikson Zaharias is the first American to win the British Ladies' Open Amateur. She turns pro later in the year.
Golf World magazine begins publishing.

1948

The first U.S. Junior Amateur is played, with Dean Lind beating future U.S. Open champion Ken Venturi in the championship match.

Bobby Locke wins the Chicago Victory National Championship by 16 strokes, establishing a PGA Tour record.

Ben Hogan captures the first of four U.S. Opens with a record score of 276. He also wins the PGA Championship.

Golf Journalmagazine - originally USGA Journal Combining Timely Turf Topics - appears.

African-American professionals Ted Rhodes and Bill Spiller finish in the top 25 at the Los Angeles Open, one of the few tournaments open to African-Americans. They remain excluded from most PGA Tour events under a rule that leaves the decision up to tournament sponsors.

January 14 – the trolley bell at ACCC clangs for the last Shore Fast Line Trolley run down Shore Road.

ACCC hosts U.S. Women’s Open, won by Babe Zarahias, who is instrumental in establishing the LPGA.

1949

Sam Snead wins The Masters by finishing 67-67. Later, he adds the PGA Championship.
Marlene Bauer, 15, wins the inaugural U.S. Girls' Junior Championship, and turns pro later in the year.

The Ladies Professional Golf Association, under dynamic tournament manager Fred Corcoran, replaces the struggling Women's Professional Golf Association.

Wilber "Dutch" Hood named ACCC pro.

1950

Ben Hogan returns to the Tour a year after nearly being killed in an automobile accident and wins the U.S. Open at Merion in an 18-hole playoff.

Jimmy Demaret wins his third Masters.

Babe Zaharias wins the U.S. Women's Open by nine strokes.

Sam Snead wins 11 events on the PGA Tour.

Howard Everett defeats young Arnold Palmer in Pennsylvania Amateur.

Virgil “Bucky” Worham becomes ACCC pro. His brother Lew won U.S. Open.

1951

Arnold Palmer drops out of college when his roommate “Buddy” Worsham dies in car crash, joins Coast Guard and stationed at Cape May.

The USGA and R&A hold a joint conference and agree on a uniform Rules of Golf worldwide, effective the following year. The only remaining difference is the size of the ball (the R&A permits a diameter of 1.62 inches compared with the USGA's 1.68 inches).
The stymie is abolished, center-shafted putters are legalized (in Britain center-shafted putters had been illegal since 1909), and the out-of-bounds penalty is made stroke and distance.

Ben Hogan wins The Masters and a second consecutive U.S. Open. The latter victory comes at Oakland Hills, deemed a "monster" after its redesign by Robert Trent Jones Sr., in 1950.

Golf Digest begins publishing.

1952

General Dwight David Eisenhower is elected U.S. President. During his eight years in office, his cottage at Augusta National becomes the "Little White House."

Jack Burke Jr. wins four consecutive events on the PGA Tour, second in history to Byron Nelson's 11.

Patty Berg shoots an LPGA-record 64 in the Richmond Open.

Julius Boros captures the U.S. Open. He also wins the biggest first-place prize, $25,000, at the World Championship.

1953

Ben Hogan takes the three majors he enters - The Masters, U.S. Open and British Open. It is his fourth U.S. Open title.

The first nationally televised tournament, the World Championship, ends with a moment of high drama when Lew Worsham holes out from 135 yards to eagle the final hole and win by one.

Tommy Armour's popular instruction book, How to Play Your Best Golf All the Time, published .

Avid golfer President Dwight D. Eisenhower visited the Seaview. His legendary passion for golf prompted two press junkets to Seaview and helped raise the games popularity among the American public. During his term in office, the number of American golfers doubled.

1954

The U.S. Open is televised nationally for the first time. Also new - the holes are roped for gallery control.

Babe Zaharias wins the U.S. Women's Open by twelve strokes a year after undergoing cancer surgery.

Sam Snead beats Ben Hogan in a playoff to win The Masters after amateur Billy Joe Patton falters on the final nine holes of regulation play.

The World Championship has the first $100,000 purse, with $50,000 going to the winner - five times more than the next largest first prize. Bob Toski earns the windfall.

1955

Unheralded Jack Fleck stuns Ben Hogan with his U.S. Open playoff win at The Olympic Club.

Arnold Palmer scores his first professional victory in the Canadian Open.
Life Magazine pays Ben Hogan $20,000 for a cover story revealing the "secret" he discovered nine years earlier which rid him of a hook.

1955-1957, the Seaview Pines Course was expanded

1956

Senior tournament held at ACCC, won by Art Wall.

Seaview adds conference wing.

Jack Burke, Jr., makes up an eight-stroke deficit on amateur Ken Venturi to win The Masters. Burke also takes the PGA Championship.

Australian Peter Thomson wins his third consecutive British Open.

Cary Middlecoff captures his second U.S. Open title.

Yardage for guidance in computing par are increased to current levels: Three - up to 250 yards Four - 251 to 470 yards Five - 471 yards and over

1957

Jackie Pung finishes as the apparent winner of the U.S. Women's Open, but is disqualified for signing an incorrect scorecard. Betsy Rawls takes the title.

Bobby Locke wins his fourth British Open with a record tying 279.

Great Britain triumphs in the Ryder Cup for the first time since 1933.

Ben Hogan publishes an instructional classic: Five Lessons: The Modern Fundamentals of Golf .

Charlie Sifford wins the Long Beach Open, an event "cosponsored" by the PGA.

Senior tournament held at ACCC, won by Dick Sleichter.

1958

A new USGA system provides just one handicap for golfers, not "current" and "basic."
Arnold Palmer wins his first of four Masters titles.

At age twenty-three Mickey Wright sweeps the U.S. Women's Open and LPGA
Championship.

The PGA Championship changes from match play to stroke play. Dow Finsterwald claims the title.

The USGA and R&A organize the World Amateur Golf Council, and hold the first World Amateur Team Championship at the Old Course in St. Andrews, Scotland. Bobby Jones serves as captain of the American squad.

1959

Mickey Wright wins her second consecutive U.S. Women's Open.

Bill Wright becomes the first African-American player to take a national championship, claiming the U.S. Amateur Public Links.

Nineteen-year-old Jack Nicklaus captures first of two U.S. Amateur titles.

Betsy Rawls wins 10 LPGA tournaments.

1960

Arnold Palmer, golf's most popular player, has his greatest year. He wins The Masters with birdies on the last two holes, the U.S. Open with a final-round 65, finishes second in the British Open, and wins eight PGA Tour events.

Betsy Rawls wins her fourth U.S. Women's Open.

Centennial British Open – St. Andrews, Scotland. Leo Fraser attends with Stan Dudas and Arnold Palmer.

William Kelly ACCC pro.

1961

Mickey Wright wins three majors - the U.S. Women's Open, LPGA Championship, and the Titleholders - and 10 events in all.

The PGA of America drops the Caucasians-only clause from its constitution, allowing African-Americans to become members.

Arnold Palmer wins the British Open; his appearances in the event starting in 1960 convince more American players to make the trip.

Jerry Barber sinks monster putts of 40 and 60 feet on the last two holes to tie Don January for the PGA Championship; Barber then wins the 18-hole playoff by a stroke.
Anne Quast Sander wins the U.S. Women's Amateur by a record 14 and 13 margin over Phyllis Preuss.

There are now 5 million golfers in the United States, according to the National Golf Foundation.

Seaview’s Executive wing was complete with 6 suites and 21 executive bedrooms.

Leo Fraser lays out and opens Mays Landing Country Club.

Atlantis CC, Ocean County – George Fazio

Ron Ward ACCC Pro

1962

Rookie professional Jack Nicklaus beats hometown favorite Arnold Palmer to win the U.S. Open in a playoff at Oakmont Country Club near Pittsburgh.

Arnold Palmer wins The Masters, British Open, and seven PGA Tour events.

Mickey Wright wins 10 tournaments for the second consecutive year.

For the first time, water hazards are marked with painted lines at the U.S. Open.

1963

Arnold Palmer is the first player to surpass $100,000 in earnings in a single year.
Jack Nicklaus wins The Masters and PGA Championship.

At the age of 20 years, 6 months, Ray Floyd is the youngest player to win a PGA Tour event (the St. Petersburg Open) since 1928.

New Zealand's Bob Charles becomes the only left-hander to win one of the four major championships, claiming the British Open.

Mickey Wright wins 13 events on the LPGA Tour.

Clubmakers are experimenting with the casting method for making irons, enabling them to create a larger "sweet spot" than forged blades offer.

1964

Pete Brown becomes the first African-American to win an "official" PGA Tournament, taking the Waco Turner Open.

Ken Venturi wins the U.S. Open despite suffering from heat prostration during a 36-hole final day at Congressional Country Club outside Washington, D.C.

Mickey Wright wins her fourth U.S. Open, one of 11 tournaments she captures during the year.

Bobby Nichols wins the PGA Championship with a 72-hole total of 271.

Arnold Palmer, for the fourth time, wins The Masters.

B. L. England, Marmora – Leo Fraser design.

An executive conference center added to Seaview.

1965

Sam Snead earns his 81st and final PGA Tour victory in the Greater Greensboro Open, while becoming the Tour's oldest winner ever at 52 years, 10 months.

The U.S. Amateur changes from match play to stroke play. The U.S. Open is held over four days instead of three; no more 36 holes on the final day.

Jack Nicklaus wins The Masters by nine strokes with a record 271 total. Tournament host Bobby Jones says Nicklaus "plays a game with which I am not familiar."

Gary Player joins Ben Hogan and Gene Sarazen to become the third player in history to win all four majors when he captures the U.S. Open. The South African is the first foreign winner of the Open in 45 years. He donates his winners check back to the USGA in support of junior golf.

Peter Thomson earns his fifth British Open.

U.S. Women’s Open at ACCC won by Carol Mann, and features young amateur Catherine Lacosta, who secretly plays Pine Valley.

Don Siok named ACCC Pro.

1966

Billy Casper wins the U.S. Open in a playoff after Arnold Palmer drops a seven-stroke lead over the last nine holes of regulation at The Olympic Club in San Francisco, Calif.

Jack Nicklaus takes his third Masters in four years and second in a row. He also is the British Open champion, becoming the fourth player to win all four major events.

1967

Jack Nicklaus takes the U.S. Open with a record total of 275 at Baltusrol Golf Club in New Jersey.

Catherine Lacoste of France becomes the only amateur to win the U.S. Women's Open.
Forty-five-year-old Charlie Sifford wins the Greater Hartford Open.

Eisenhower returns to Seaview.

1968

Croquet-style putting, recently employed by Sam Snead, is ruled illegal by the USGA.
The Tournament Players Division is created within the PGA.

Roberto De Vicenzo loses The Masters when he signs an incorrect scorecard for one stroke higher than he actually shot. He would have been in an 18-hole playoff with Bob Goalby, who is declared the winner.

Lee Trevino is the first player to break 70 for all four rounds in a U.S. Open, winning with a record-tying 275 total.

Forty-eight-year-old Julius Boros is the oldest player to claim a major title, winning the PGA Championship.

Jo Anne Gunderson Carner wins her fifth U.S. Women's Amateur.

Arnold Palmer becomes the first player to top $1 million in career earnings.

Kathy Whitworth and Carol Mann each win 10 tournaments on the LPGA Tour.

1969

Jo Anne Carner is the last amateur to win an LPGA Tour event, the Burdine's Invitational.

Tony Jacklin is the first homebred player to win the British Open in 18 years.

1970

Mickey Wright retires from full-time competition at age 34, while Jo Anne Carner turns professional at age 30 after an outstanding amateur career.

England's Tony Jacklin wins the U.S. Open.

Jack Nicklaus wins the British Open in a playoff after Doug Sanders misses a 3-foot putt on the 72nd green.

Lanny Wadkins beats Tom Kite by one stroke to win the U.S. Amateur.

1971

Leo Fraser serves as an official on the U.S. Ryder Cup team.

Lee Trevino becomes the first player to win the U.S., British, and Canadian Open with his three victories in a four-week stretch. Tiger Woods would match that feat in 2000.

Astronaut Alan Shepard takes the game to new frontiers by hitting a 6-iron shot during a walk on the moon.

With his PGA Championship victory, Jack Nicklaus becomes the first player to win all the majors twice.

The number of golfers in the U.S. has doubled in the last 10 years - there are now 10 million.

1972

U.S. Women’s Open won by Sandra Palmer; features young amateur Nancy Lopez.

Jack Nicklaus wins The Masters and U.S. Open, then is thwarted in his bid for the Grand Slam by Lee Trevino in the British Open.

The Colgate-Dinah Shore Winners Circle debuts on the LPGA Tour, offering the first six-figure purse in women's golf -- $110,000.

Spalding introduces the two-piece Top-Flite ball, constructed with a solid core inside a durable synthetic cover.

Title IX legislation is passed by Congress, forcing colleges to provide more opportunities for female athletes. The expansion of women's college golf increases the talent pool of the LPGA Tour.

Carolyn Cudone wins her fifth consecutive USGA Senior Women's Amateur, a record for any USGA event.

1973

Johnny Miller becomes the U.S. Open Champion, firing a record 63 in the final round at Oakmont.

Tom Weiskopf takes five tournaments, including the British Open, in a two-month stretch.

Gene Sarazen, age 71, scores an ace on the "Postage Stamp" hole during the British Open at Royal Troon.

Ben Crenshaw bursts onto the PGA Tour by winning his first event as a member, the San Antonio Texas Open.

The U.S. Amateur returns to match play; the winner is Craig Stadler.

Kathy Whitworth is the LPGA Player of the Year for the seventh time in eight years.
The graphite shaft is introduced.

1974

Johnny Miller wins eight PGA Tour events.

Deane Beman becomes Commissioner of the PGA Tour.

The Tournament Players Championship makes its debut.

The Muirfield Village Golf Club, designed by Jack Nicklaus and Desmond Muirhead, opens near Nicklaus' hometown of Columbus, Ohio.

Sandra Haynie sweeps the U.S. Women's Open and LPGA Championship.

1975

Jack Nicklaus wins his fifth Masters in a classic battle with Tom Weiskopf and Johnny Miller. Nicklaus also takes his fourth PGA Championship.

Lee Elder becomes the first African-American to play in The Masters.

Nineteen-year-old Amy Alcott wins in just her third LPGA Tour event.

Lippincott and Leeds families, original founders of ACCC, sell Chalfonte Haddon Hall which becomes Resorts International, the first legal casino outside of Nevada.

1976

Ray Floyd wins The Masters with a record tying 271 total.

Judy Rankin, with $150,734 in earnings, becomes the first LPGA Tour player to earn more than $100,000 in a season.

The USGA adopts the Overall Distance Standard for golf balls, limiting them to 280 yards under standard test conditions.

Jack Nicklaus leads the PGA Tour in earnings for the eighth and final time.

1977

Al Geiberger is the first PGA Tour player to break 60, shooting a 59 in the Danny Thomas Memphis Classic.

Tom Watson hits the big time, besting Jack Nicklaus in both The Masters and the British Open. Watson's 268 sets a British Open record.

The U.S. Open is the first American golf event to provide television coverage of all 18 holes.

A major championship is decided by sudden death for the first time when Lanny Wadkins beats Gene Littler in the PGA Championship at Pebble Beach.

1978

Nancy Lopez gives the LPGA Tour a boost by winning five tournaments in a row, and nine in all, during her first full season.
Gary Player takes his third Masters by shooting a 64 in the final round, then wins the next two events as well.
Jack Nicklaus's third British Open title gives him at least three wins in all four majors.
The Legends of Golf debuts, an event that will lead to the birth of the Senior Tour (now called the Champions Tour).

1979

TaylorMade introduces its first metal wood. In the next decade, metal woods will become predominant.
The USGA plants a tree overnight at the Inverness Club in Toledo, Ohio to block a shortcut taken by several players in the first round of the U.S. Open.
Sixty-seven-year-old Sam Snead shoots a 66 during the Quad Cities Open.
Twenty-two-year-old Seve Ballesteros wins the British Open at Royal Lytham & St. Annes.

1980

Jack Nicklaus captures the U.S. Open (his fourth) and PGA Championship (his fifth) at age 40. He shoots a U.S. Open record 272 in the Open at Baltusrol and ties the 18-hole record with a 63.

The USGA adds the U.S. Senior Open to its list of Championships. Roberto De Vicenzo is the inaugural Champion.

Leo Fraser hosts PGA Senior tournament shortly before US Senior Open, helping to establish the PGA Senior Tour, now the Champion’s Tour. Sam Snead, Julius Boros, Lew Worsham and many others showed up for the event, which was a charity benefit for Juvenile Diabetes and was won by Don January.

Tom Watson leads the PGA Tour money list for an unprecedented fourth consecutive year. He wins six U.S. events and the British Open.

The Tournament Players Club at Sawgrass, designed by Pete Dye, opens near Jacksonville, Fla. It is the first "stadium course," and the first course of the PGA Tour's TPC network.

The USGA introduces the golf ball Symmetry Standard to the Rules of Golf.

1981

Avalon CC – Cape May Court House – Est.

Kathy Whitworth is the first woman golfer to top $1million in career earnings.
The USGA adds the U.S. Mid-Amateur Championship for players 25 and older, an event in which career amateurs won't have to face college golfers, who often dominate the U.S. Amateur.

Tom Kite finishes in the top 10 in 21 of 26 tournaments and leads the PGA Tour money list.

1982

Tom Watson takes his only U.S. Open, chipping in on the 71st hole to beat Jack Nicklaus at Pebble Beach.

Juli Inkster takes her third consecutive U.S. Women's Amateur, the first to accomplish this feat in 48 years.

Kathy Whitworth breaks Mickey Wright's record for career LPGA victories by winning her 83rd event. She will later take five more.

Jan Stephenson wins the LPGA Championship, and the next year, the U.S. Women's Open.

1983

For the fifth time, Tom Watson is the British Open champion.

1984

Golf instruction videotapes begin to hit the market.

Hollis Stacy takes her third U.S. Women's Open to go with her three U. S. Girls' Junior titles.

Forty-year-old Lee Trevino is the PGA titleholder, giving him two U.S. Open, British Open, and PGA titles.

1985

The USGA introduces the Slope System to adjust handicaps according to the difficulty of the course being played.

Europe beats the U.S. in the Ryder Cup for the first time since 1957 (the Great Britain and Ireland team was expanded to include all of Europe in 1979). Two years later, the European team wins for the first time on U.S. soil.

T.C. Chen drops a four-stroke lead in the U.S. Open at Oakland Hills by double-hitting a chip shot and making a quadruple bogey on the fifth hole. Andy North wins the championship.

Senior tournament held at ACCC.

1986

Seaview was the proud host of the Atlantic City LPGA Classic, which would later become the ShopRite LPGA Classic, that drew legendary players like Betsy King, Juli Inkster, and Nancy Lopez.

Forty-six-year-old Jack Nicklaus wins his sixth Masters and 18th professional major.

Forty-three-year-old Ray Floyd wins the U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in Southampton, N.Y., the first Open played at the club in 90 years.

Bob Tway holes out from a greenside bunker on the 72nd hole to break a tie and beat Greg Norman in the PGA Championship.

Pat Bradley wins three LPGA majors - the Nabisco Dinah Shore, LPGA Championship, and du Maurier Classic.

Greg Norman wins nine events worldwide (two in the U.S., three in Europe, and four in Australia).

There are now 20 million golfers and 12,384 courses in the U.S.

Senior tournament held at ACCC.

1987

Larry Mize beats Greg Norman in a sudden-death playoff at The Masters by holing a 100-foot pitch on the second extra hole.

Judy Bell becomes the first woman elected to the USGA Executive Committee.
The PGA Tour tops $30 million in prize money; the new season-ending Nabisco Championship is the first $2 million event.

Nick Faldo pars all 18 holes of the final round in the British Open to win his first major.
Craig Stadler is disqualified from the Shearson Lehman Brothers Andy Williams San Diego Open for kneeling on a towel to play a shot, then signing an incorrect scorecard.

1988

Mary Bea Porter interrupts her qualifying round for the LPGA's Standard Register Classic to resuscitate a boy who had fallen into a nearby swimming pool.
Seve Ballesteros wins his third British Open - one of seven victories during the year in seven different countries.
Curtis Strange becomes the first player to collect $1 million in season earnings on the PGA Tour.
The groove wars begin. The USGA rules that Ping Eye2 irons don't conform to the Rules because the grooves are too close together. Karsten Manufacturing, maker of Ping, files suit. A settlement will be reached in 1990 under which new Pings are modified to conform and existing Pings are deemed acceptable.

1989

The PGA Tour announces it will ban square-groove irons next year, but Karsten Manufacturing wins a court injunction against the move. Four years later, in an out-of-court settlement, the Tour reverses itself and permits square grooves.

Curtis Strange wins his second consecutive U.S. Open, the first to do so since Ben Hogan (1950 and 1951).

The Rolling Stones stayed at Seaview for 10 days during December of 89’. The Stones were in the midst of their Steel Wheels Tour and lead singer Mick Jagger was said to have met music legend Eric Clapton for lunch in the Grill Room one day. Folk-artist Bob Dylan was also a guest at the Seaview during this time, staying under the pseudonym "Justin Case".

1990

After a controversy at the PGA Championship site Shoal Creek Country Club in Birmingham, Ala., the PGA of America and PGA Tour announce they will not play tournaments at clubs that have no African-American or women members.

Robert Gamez beats Greg Norman in the Nestle Invitational by holing a seven-iron from 176 yards on the 72nd hole.

Hale Irwin, at age 45, becomes the oldest U.S. Open winner.

Nick Faldo becomes the first player since Jack Nicklaus (1965 and 1966) to capture consecutive Masters titles. He also wins the British Open.

Phil Mickelson sweeps the U.S. Amateur and NCAA Championship, a feat not accomplished since Jack Nicklaus.

The R&A adopts the American-sized ball (1.68 inches) as standard all over the world.

1991

Long-hitting rookie John Daly overpowers the field in the PGA Championship, after making the field as an alternate.
Amateur Phil Mickelson wins the PGA Tour's Northern Telecom Open at age 20.
Chip Beck shoots a 59 during the Las Vegas Invitational to tie Al Geiberger's PGA Tour record.
Payne Stewart claims the U.S. Open at Hazeltine in a playoff with Scott Simpson.

1992

Fred Couples' victory at The Masters puts him over $1million in earnings in the second week of April.

The PGA Tour tops $50 million in purses; the LPGA and Senior Tours both go over $20 million.

Ray Floyd, at age 49, wins the Doral Ryder Open 29 years after his first PGA Tour victory. Later in the year, he wins on the Senior Tour.

Betsy King wins the LPGA Championship by 11 strokes with a 72-hole record 267.
John F. Merchant, a Connecticut attorney, is the first African-American elected to the USGA Executive Committee.

Nick Faldo captures his third British Open.

1993

Bernard Langer wins his second Masters.

Greg Norman wins his second British Open. Norman's 267 total sets a British Open record.

For the third consecutive year, Tiger Woods is the U.S. Junior Amateur champion. No other player has repeated in the event.

Sarah LeBrun Ingram becomes the first player to take the U.S. Women's Mid-Amateur Championship twice. The event began in 1987.

Blue Heron Pines – Stephen Kay

1994

Nick Price wins the British Open at Turnberry, aided by a final-round eagle on the 17th hole.

Tim Finchem succeeds Deane Beman as Commissioner of the PGA Tour.
Arnold Palmer bids farewell to the U.S. Open in a stirring march up the 18th fairway at Oakmont.

Patty Sheehan wins the U.S. Women's Open at Indianwood, her second in three years.

Nick Price wins his second major of the year -- the PGA Championship at Southern Hills.

1995

Corey Pavin claims the USGA's Centennial U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills.

Ben Crenshaw wins The Masters just days after the death of his mentor and teacher Harvey Penick.

Tiger Woods wins his second consecutive U.S. Amateur Championship, held at Newport (R.I.) Country Club.

At St. Andrews, John Daly captures the British Open, his second career major.

The European team wins the Ryder Cup at Oak Hill by the margin of 14Â½-13Â½.

1996

Harbor Pines – 1996 Max Gurwiez & Sons, Inc. – Stephan Kay.

Judy Bell becomes the first woman elected President of the USGA.

Nick Faldo overtakes Greg Norman to win The Masters.

Tiger Woods wins his third consecutive U.S. Amateur Championship at Pumpkin Ridge. Later, he joins the PGA Tour, wins twice, and earns Rookie of the Year honors.

Tom Watson wins the Memorial Tournament - his first victory in nine years.

Kelli Kuehne wins her second consecutive U.S. Women's Amateur title, and later adds the British Ladies Open Amateur.

Annika Sorenstam wins her second consecutive Women's Open Championship, held at Pine Needles.

1997

Tiger Woods wins The Masters in record fashion, with an 18-under-par total and a 12-stroke margin of victory.

Ernie Els wins the U.S. Open at Congressional, his second in four years.

The first Ryder Cup is held on Continental European soil, at Valderrama in Spain. The European team wins.

Justin Leonard wins the British Open at Royal Troon, carding a final-round 65.

Jack Nicklaus competes in the U.S. Open at Congressional -- his 150th consecutive major championship.

1998

Lee Janzen wins his second U.S. Open title of the 90's at The Olympic Club in San Francisco, Calif.

Casey Martin is awarded the right to ride in a golf cart at the U.S. Open.

Mark O'Meara, at age 41, becomes the oldest player to win The Masters and the British Open in the same year.

Vijay Singh, with a victory at the PGA Championship, wins his first major; it is the first major championship claimed by a player from Fiji.

Se Ri Pak, a 19-year-old phenom from Korea, captivates the LPGA Tour with major wins at the U.S. Women's Open and the LPGA Championship.

The Bay Course is restored close to its original design by architect Bob Cupp Jr.

Fraser family sells ACCC to Bally-Hilton

William Billy Ziobro named ACCC Pro.

1999

Thirteen-year-old Aree Wongluekiet becomes the youngest winner in USGA history by capturing the Girls' Junior championship at Green Spring Valley Hunt Club.

The U.S. wins the Ryder Cup in dramatic comeback at The Country Club in Brookline, Mass.

Paul Lawrie, a native of Scotland, wins the British Open in a three-way playoff when Frenchman Jean Van de Velde collapses on the 72nd hole.

Jose Maria Olazabal wins his second Masters.

The U.S. Senior Open attracts record crowds of over 250,000 in Des Moines, Iowa.
Payne Stewart wins his second U.S. Open title at Pinehurst, sinking a dramatic par putt on the 72nd hole. Tragically, he perishes along with five others in a plane crash four months later.

Juli Inkster smashes the U.S. Women's Open scoring record at Old Waverly. Later in the year, with a victory in the Safeway LPGA Golf Championship, she earns entry into the LPGA Hall of Fame.

The USGA implements testing protocol for "spring-like" effect in metal woods.

2000

The USGA celebrates the 100th playing of the U.S. Open, U.S. Amateur, and U.S. Women's Amateur, as well as the 75th playing of the U.S. Amateur Public Links.

Shigeki Maruyama cards a 58 in sectional qualifying for the U.S. Open.

At 10 years of age, Michelle Wie becomes the youngest player to compete in a USGA women's amateur competition when she qualifies for the Women's Amateur Public Links in Aberdeen, N.C.

Tiger Woods rolls to a record 15-stroke victory at the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach (Calif.) Golf Links. It is Woods' first Open title and his seventh USGA championship. He would go on to win the season's final two major championships, the British Open at St. Andrews and the PGA Championship at Valhalla, becoming the first golfer since Ben Hogan in 1953 to win three majors in a year.

By defeating Anna Schultz, 3 and 2, in the final of the Women's Mid-Amateur, Ellen Port becomes only the second player in the championship's history to win three Women's Mid-Amateur titles, joining Sarah LeBrun Ingram.
2001

Galloway National Galloway – Vernon Hill. Tom Fazio

Ballamor Brian T. Ault/Dan Schlege

Tiger Woods is the first player to hold all four professional-major titles at one time when he captures The Masters in April. It becomes known as the "The Tiger Slam."

Retief Goosen of South Africa wins the U.S. Open at Southern Hills in an 18-hole playoff over Mark Brooks.

Karrie Webb rolls to an eight-shot victory at the U.S. Women's Open at Pine Needles and joins six others (Mickey Wright, Donna Caponi, Susie Maxwell Berning, Hollis Stacy, Betsy King and Annika Sorenstam) as back-to-back winners of this championship.

Annika Sorenstam becomes the first female golfer to ever shoot a 59 in an LPGA event, achieving the feat at the Standard Register PING in Phoenix, Ariz.

Christina Kim registers the lowest 18-hole score in any USGA championship when she fires a 62 in the second round of stroke-play qualifying at the U.S. Girls' Junior at Indian Hills Country Club in Mission Hills, Kan.

James Vargas establishes a U.S. Junior 36-hole stroke-play scoring record of 132 at Oak Hills Country Club in San Antonio, Texas.

Meredith Duncan outlasts Nicole Perrot in a 37-hole thriller for the U.S. Women's Amateur title at Flint Hills National Golf Club in Wichita, Kan. The loss prevented Perrot from becoming the first golfer to capture the U.S. Girls' Junior and Women's Amateur in the same year.

In the first 36-hole final in U.S. Mid-Amateur history, Tim Jackson defeats George Zahringer, 1 up, at San Joaquin Country Club in Fresno, Calif.

The Great Britain and Ireland Walker Cup team registers a 15-9 victory over the USA squad at Ocean Forest Golf Club. It's the first time the GB&I squad had posted consecutive victories over the USA in the 79-year history of the Match.

Kemp Richardson joins his later father, John, as the only father-son duo to capture a USGA championship, when he defeats Bill Ploeger, 2 and 1, for the USGA Senior Amateur crown at Norwood Hills Country Club in St. Louis, Mo. John Richardson also won the Senior Amateur title in 1987 at Saucon Valley Country Club in Bethlehem, Pa.

2002

For the first time ever, the U.S. Open is held at a publicly owned facility (Bethpage State Park's Black Course). Tiger Woods wins the title by three strokes over Phil Mickelson and is the only player in the field to finish under par (-3).

Ernie Els ends Tiger Woods' hopes for a Grand Slam by taking the British Open at Muirfield in a playoff over Steve Elkington, Thomas Levet and Stuart Appleby. Woods had won the Masters and U.S. Open titles.

Juli Inkster returns to the site of her first Women's Amateur championship (Prairie Dunes Country Club in Hutchinson, Kan.) and fires a final-round 66 to beat Annika Sorenstam by two strokes for her second U.S. Women's Open title. Inkster joined Jack Nicklaus as the only players to win a U.S. Amateur and Open at the same course.

Carol Semple Thompson, playing in her record 12th Curtis Cup Match, sinks a 27-foot birdie putt from the fringe at the 18th hole to secure the USA's 11-7 victory over Great Britain and Ireland. The dramatic putt was fitting since the Match was played in Thompson's hometown of Pittsburgh, Pa., at the Fox Chapel Golf Club. It was also Thompson's 18th victory in Curtis Cup play, another record.

George Zahringer, at 49, becomes the oldest player to win the U.S. Mid-Amateur title, when he defeats Jerry Courville Jr., 3 and 2, at his home course, The Stanwich Club in Greenwich, Conn.

Carol Semple Thompson, en route to winning her fourth consecutive USGA Senior Women's Amateur championship at Mid-Pines Inn and Golf Club in Southern Pines, N.C., establishes a consecutive match-play winning streak record of 24.

2003

Michelle Wie, 13, becomes the youngest champion of an adult USGA championship when she defeats Virada Nirapathponporn in the final of the Women's Amateur Public Links Championship at Ocean Hammock Golf Club in Palm Coast, Fla.

Jim Furyk establishes a 54-hole U.S. Open scoring record of 200 en route to a three-stroke victory over Stephen Leaney. Furyk's 72-hole total of 272 tied an Open mark held by Jack Nicklaus, Lee Janzen and Tiger Woods.

Hilary Lunke outlasts Angela Stanford and Kelly Robbins in an 18-hole playoff for the U.S. Women's Open title. Lunke becomes the first player since Annika Sorenstam in 1995 to make the Women's Open her first professional victory. Lunke also is the first champion to have won by going through local and sectional qualifying.

2004
2005
2006 - Steve Sullivan ACCC Pro.
2007 - Charles Fahy named ACCC Pro.
2008
2009

2010
The ShopRite LPGA Classic returned to Seaview after a 3 year hiatus. Playing on the historic Bay Course, Ai Miyazato captured the title by 2 strokes.
Seaview was purchased by The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, which updated and made improvements to the property to continue its tradition of elegant accommodations for vacations, golf outings, weddings and corporate events, while playing an integral role in their expanding Hospitality and Tourism Management Studies program.
2011
Seaview - A Dolce Resort completes Phase I of a multi-million dollar renovation of the property’s golf, dining, meeting and event venues while paying tribute to the historical significance of the resort’s architectural standards and grand style.
2012

USGA Golf Time Line Chronology

2011-11-10T08:09:00.000-08:00

USGA Golf Time Lie Chronological History

The foundation of the United States Golf Association on Dec. 22, 1894 marked the formal organization of American golf, establishing a centralized body to write the Rules, conduct national championships and establish a national system of handicapping. The USGA also plays a prominent role as the game's historian in the United States, collecting, displaying and preserving artifacts and memorabilia at its Museum and Archives in Far Hills, N.J.

USGA History: 1894 - 1910

1894
In September, William G. Lawrence wins a "national amateur championship" at Newport (R.I.) Golf Club. In October, Laurence B. Stoddard wins a "national amateur championship" at St. Andrew's Golf Club.
C.B. Macdonald, runner-up in both events, calls for the formation of a governing body to run a universally recognized national championship.
The Amateur Golf Association of the United States - soon to be called the United States Golf Association - is formed on Dec. 22. Charter members are Newport Golf Club, Shinnecock Hills Golf Club, The Country Club (Brookline, Mass.), St. Andrew's Golf Club (Yonkers, N.Y.), and Chicago Golf Club.
America's first golf magazine, The Golfer , is published in New York, N.Y.

1895
Charles B. Macdonald wins the first official U.S. Amateur championship at Newport Golf Club. The first U.S. Open is held the next day at the same club, almost as an afterthought to the Amateur. Horace Rawlins wins the $150 first prize over a field of 11.
Mrs. Charles S. Brown (Lucy Barnes) wins the first U.S. Women's Amateur championship at the Meadow Brook Club in Hempstead, N.Y.
Golf in America: A Practical Manual , by James Lee, is the first golf book written in the U.S.

1896
James Foulis wins the second official U.S. Open, held at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club.
John Shippen, an African-American professional, and his friend Oscar Bonn, a Shinnecock Indian, compete in the U.S. Open despite a threatened boycott by the other contestants. Shippen finished fifth.

1897
Yale wins the first collegiate golf championship.
Joe Lloyd is victorious in the third U.S. Open, held at Chicago Golf Club.
H.J. Whigham wins his second U.S. Amateur

1898
Beatrix Hoyt wins her third straight U.S. Women's Amateur at Ardsley Club in New York. Two years later, she retires at the age of 20.
Coburn Haskell and Bertram Work design and patent a wound-rubber golf ball, which flies farther than the gutta-percha ball.
The United States Open expands to 72 holes from 36 and is held for the first time at a separate course from the Amateur.
The term "birdie" is coined at Atlantic City Country Club in New Jersey when Ab Smith says a fellow member hit a "bird of a shot" and suggests a double payoff for scoring one under par on a hole.

1900
British star Harry Vardon shows Americans how to play the game. In the country for an exhibition tour, he wins the U.S. Open over fellow Englishman J.H. Taylor. Vardon becomes the first sports figure in history to endorse a product, using his "Vardon Flyer" ball througout the tour.
Americans Charles Sands and Margaret Abbott win gold medals in golf in the Olympic Games in Paris.
Walter J. Travis, who took up golf in 1896 at age 35, wins the U.S. Amateur.

1901
Walter Travis wins his second straight U.S. Amateur Championship and publishes an instruction book,Practical Golf . He's the first to win a major championship playing a Haskell wound-rubber ball.
Willie Anderson ties Alex Smith with a record-high 331 in the U.S. Open and takes the playoff with an 85.
Pinehurst resort in North Carolina opens the first nine holes of its No.2 course.

1902
Willie Anderson wins the Western Open with a 299 total; the first time 300 is broken for 72 holes in an American event.

1903
Walter Travis, known as "The Old Man," wins his third U.S. Amateur at age 41.
Oakmont Country Club opens near Pittsburgh, Pa., quickly gaining a reputation as one of the nation's toughest tests because of its penal style of architecture.
Willie Anderson sets a U.S. Open record with a 72 in the final round and a 303 total.
Americans claim Australian-born Walter Travis as the first of their own to win the British Amateur. He uses the center-shafted Schenectady putter.

1905
Twenty-five-year-old Willie Anderson wins his third consecutive U.S. Open and fourth in five years. It is also his last Open victory; he dies in 1910.
Harry Vardon publishes The Complete Golfer , which explains, among other things, the Vardon grip.

1906
Three-time runner-up Alex Smith finally wins the U.S. Open, becoming the first to break 300 for the 72-hole championship. His brother, Willie, is second.
In Great Britain, William Taylor applies for a patent on a dimple design for golf ball covers.

1907
Pinehurst Resort in North Carolina adds the back nine holes to its No.2 course. It is the seminal work of Donald Ross, who goes on to design hundreds of courses in the United States.
Margaret Curtis beats her sister Harriot in an all-in-the-family final of the U.S. Women's Amateur.

1908
Jerry Travers wins his second consecutive U.S. Amateur.
Three-time U.S. Amateur champion Walter Travis shows he's jack-of-all-trades by founding American Golfer magazine and serving as its first editor. He's also a golf course designer.

1909
Robert Gardner becomes the youngest U.S. Amateur champion at age 19.
New U.S. President William Howard Taft is the first golf-loving occupant of the White House.
The USGA rules that caddies, caddie-masters and greenkeepers past the age of 16 are professionals. The age would be raised to 18 in 1930, 21 in 1945, until the ruling was rescinded in 1963.

1910
Arthur F. Knight obtains a patent for a seamed, tubular, steel golf shaft. Steel shafts, however, are still illegal.
The R&A bans the center-shafted putter, while the USGA keeps it legal, marking the first time that the USGA diverges from an R&A equipment ruling.
Alex Smith wins his second U.S. Open by beating his other brother, Macdonald.

1911

Johnny McDermott signals the end of dominance by Scottish-born professionals in early American golf by becoming the first native to win the U.S. Open. At 19, he's also the youngest winner ever.
Englishman Harold Hilton is the first player to win the British and U.S. Amateur in the same year.
The USGA increased yardage for determining par:
Three - up to 225 yards
Four - 225 to 425 yards
Five - 426 to 600 yards
Six - 601 yards and over

1912

JOHNNY MCDERMOTT WINS HIS SECOND CONSECUTIVE US OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP IN CHICAGO.

John Ball wins his eighth British Amateur championship - still a record number of victories in a major event.
The USGA introduces a handicap limit of six on entrants for the U.S. Amateur.

1913

Twenty-year-old American amateur Francis Ouimet stages the game's biggest upset, beating English stars Harry Vardon and Ted Ray in a playoff to win the U.S. Open at The Country Club in Brookline, Mass. The resultant headlines spark a surge of interest in the game in America.
Jerry Travers wins his fourth U.S. Amateur.

1914

Harry Vardon wins his sixth British Open, one more than each of the other two members of the "Great Triumvirate," J.H. Taylor and James Braid.
Walter Hagen, a stylish 21-year-old professional, wins the first of his two U. S. Open titles, leading after every round.
Francis Ouimet becomes the first with career U.S. Open and Amateur titles, beating Jerry Travers in the final of the U.S. Amateur.

1915

Jerry Travers adds the U.S. Open to his four U.S. Amateur crowns, then retires at age 28.
All British and Canadian championships are suspended because of World War I. They resume in Canada in 1919 and Britain in 1920.

1916

The amateur run on the U.S. Open continues. Chick Evans is the third amateur to win in four years, shooting a record 286. He is also the first to capture the U.S. Open and Amateur titles in the same year.
Fourteen-year-old Bobby Jones makes his U.S. Amateur debut, reaching the quarterfinals at Merion Cricket Club.
The Professional Golfers' Association of America is formed in January. In October, Jim Barnes wins the first PGA Championship, taking the $500 first prize.

1917

The USGA championships (U.S. Open, U.S. Amateur, U.S. Women's Amateur) and the PGA Championship are suspended in 1917 and 1918 because of World War I.
Bobby Jones, 15, wins the Southern Amateur.
Par yardage is again changed:
Three - up to 250 yards
Four - 251 to 445 yards
Five - 446 to 600 yards
Six - more than 600 yards

1918

George Crump, founder and designer of Pine Valley Golf Club, dies; only 14 holes of the New Jersey course have been completed. The remaining holes open within a few years.
Among the fund-raising tours by professional and amateur golfers for the war effort, the Dixie Kids -- featuring Atlanta teenagers Perry Adair, Watts Gunn, Bobby Jones and Alexa Stirling -- raise $150,000 for the Red Cross.

1919

Pebble Beach Golf Links opens on California's Monterey Peninsula.
The first golf book to use high-speed sequence photography - Picture Analysis of Golf Strokes , by Jim Barnes - is published.

1920

Harry Vardon, 50, competing in his third U.S. Open, plays the last seven holes in even fives to finish second, one stroke behind his English countryman, 43-year-old Ted Ray. Ray becomes the oldest man to win the Open (a record that will stand until 1963).
Alexa Stirling wins her third consecutive Women's Amateur (1916, 1919, 1920 -- the championship wasn't held in 1917 and 1918).
The USGA creates the Green Section for turfgrass research.
The USGA and R&A agree to a standard ball - 1.62 inches in diameter and 1.62 ounces.

1921

Jim Barnes romps to a nine-stroke win in the U.S. Open and President Warren Harding, a USGA Executive Committee member, presents the trophy at Columbia Country Club near Washington, D.C.
Jock Hutchison wins the British Open using deep-grooved irons; they were banned four years later.

1922

A Cinderella story: 20-year-old Gene Sarazen, a sixth-grade dropout from a working-class family, wins the U.S. Open and PGA Championship.
An admission fee ($1) is charged for the first time at the U.S. Open.
Walter Hagen becomes the first American-born player to win the British Open.
Intended for all interested countries, the first Walker Cup match between amateurs from the United States and Great Britain (the only taker) is held at National Golf Links of America in Southampton, N.Y. The United States wins.
Public-course golfers get their own tournament - the USGA's Amateur Public Links Championship.
Glenna Collett wins her first of six U.S. Women's Amateur titles.
Walter Hagen is the first professional to found a golf equipment company under his name.

1923

Winged Foot Golf Club opens, with 36 holes designed by A.W. Tillinghast. Designers like Tillinghast, Alister MacKenzie and Donald Ross make the 1920's the Golden Age of golf architecture.
After several near-misses in the U.S. Open and U.S. Amateur, Bobby Jones, 21, claims his first major title by beating Bobby Cruickshank in a playoff for the U.S. Open.
The Texas Open, in its second year, has golf's biggest purse yet - $6,000. Walter Hagen wins. The tournament is part of a growing winter circuit for the professionals.
Gene Sarazen beats Walter Hagen in a classic 38-hole final at the PGA Championship when a tree stops Sarazen's ball from going out of bounds on the deciding hole.

1924

Steel-shafted clubs are permitted in the United States by the USGA as of April 11; the R&A continues to ban their use in Great Britain until 1929.
Bobby Jones wins the first of his five U.S. Amateur titles, at Merion Cricket Club in Ardmore, Pa.
Walter Hagen's unmatched reign begins in the PGA Championship - he wins the first of four consecutive titles.
The USGA introduces sectional qualifying rounds for the U.S. Open.

1925

Willie Macfarlane shoots a record 67 in the second round of the U.S. Open and goes on to defeat Bobby Jones in a playoff.
The first complete fairway irrigation system is installed at Brook Hollow Golf Club in Dallas, Texas.
The Havemeyer Trophy, which goes to the U.S. Amateur champion, is destroyed in a fire at Bobby Jones' home club, East Lake, in Atlanta.

1926

Bobby Jones is the first to win the U.S. and British Opens in the same year.
Walter Hagen beats Leo Diegel in the final of the PGA Championship. The night before, when a carousing Hagen is told his opponent had long since gone to bed, he replies, "Yes, but he isn't sleeping."
Walter Hagen wallops Bobby Jones, 12 and 11, in a 72-hole challenge match billed as the "World Championship."
Jess Sweetser is the first American to win the British Amateur since Walter Travis in 1904 - and the first United States native ever.

1927

Walter Hagen wins his fourth consecutive PGA Championship.
The United State Department of Agriculture says it has developed "the perfect putting green grass" -- creeping bent.
Bobby Jones wins the British Open and U.S. Amateur, and publishes Down the Fairway.
The United States whips Great Britain 9-1/2 to 2-1/2, in the inaugural Ryder Cup match at Worcester Country Club in Massachusetts.

1928

Cypress Point Golf Club opens in Pebble Beach, Calif.
Walter Hagen wins the British Open. He would take his final title in the championship the following year at Muirfield.
Bobby Jones and Glenna Collett continue to dominate amateur golf. Jones wins the U.S. Amateur final by a 10 and 9 margin. Collett claims the Women's Amateur, 13 and 12.

1929

Great Britain evens the fledgling Ryder Cup series by winning on its home turf at Moortown, England.
Twenty-year-old Horton Smith sweeps out of Missouri to win eight professional tournaments, including four in a row in the spring.
The world's two best women amateurs meet in the British Ladies Amateur. Great Britain's Joyce Wethered beats America's Glenna Collett, 3 and 1, at the Old Course in St. Andrews, Scotland, claiming her fourth British title.
The U.S. Amateur goes to the West Coast for the first time, at Pebble Beach Golf Links. Bobby Jones is the victim of a first-round upset.

1930

Bobby Jones wins the Grand Slam - the U.S. Open, U.S. Amateur, British Open and British Amateur - then retires at age 28.
Glenna Collett wins her third consecutive U.S. Women's Amateur.
The onset of the Depression brings a slowdown in golf-course construction, which lasts through the end of World War II.
Seventeen-year-old Ben Hogan registers as a professional at the Texas Open.

1931
The USGA mandates use of a larger and lighter ball (1.68 inches and 1.55 ounces). This so-called "balloon ball" is very unpopular, and after only one year the USGA increases the allowed weight to 1.62 ounces, keeping the size at 1.68 inches. Meanwhile, the R&A stays with the 1.62-inch, 1.62-ounce ball.
The concave-faced wedge is banned, but Gene Sarazen perfects his design of the sand wedge, with a wide flange, which will remain legal.
Bobby Jones films a series of instructional movies, How I Play Golf .
Billy Burke is the first to win a U.S. Open using steel shafts. It takes him seventy-two extra holes (two thirty-six-hole playoffs) to beat George Von Elm.

1932
Gene Sarazen wins the U.S. Open and British Open, with record scores of 286 and 283, respectively. He finishes the U.S. Open with a record 66.
The first Curtis Cup Match, between women amateurs of the U.S. and Great Britain, is won by the United States, 5-1/2 to 3-1/2.

1933
Augusta National Golf Club, founded by Bobby Jones, has its grand opening in January.
Johnny Goodman is the fifth, and most recent, amateur to win the U.S. Open.

1934
Horton Smith wins the first Augusta National Invitational. Its name will be changed to The Masters in 1939.
Lawson Little wins the U.S. Amateur and British Amateur, the "Little Slam," a feat he will repeat in 1935.
England's Henry Cotton ties the British Open record with a 67 in the first round and breaks it with a 65 in the second. His victory is the first by a Briton in eleven years.
Virginia Van Wie wins the U.S. Women's Amateur for the third consecutive year.
Joseph C. Dey, Jr., is appointed Executive Secretary of the USGA. He will hold the post for thirty-four years.
Helen Hicks becomes one of the first women to turn professional. There are no professional tournaments, but she promotes products for Wilson-Western Sporting Goods Company.

1935
Gene Sarazen strikes the most famous shot in the history of The Masters - a double eagle on Augusta National's fifteenth hole, which ties Craig Wood during the final round. Sarazen wins the playoff the next day.
Glenna Collett Vare wins her sixth U.S. Women's Amateur.

1936
Lawson Little turns professional instead of going for a third consecutive U.S. Amateur - British Amateur sweep.
Unheralded Tony Manero closes with a 67 to win the U.S. Open with a record 282.
In winning the U.S. Amateur, Johnny Fischer is the last to capture a national championship using hickory-shafted clubs.

1937
Sam Snead bursts onto the professional circuit with five victories.
The first Bing Crosby National Pro-Am is held at Rancho Santa Fe in San Diego. It will move to Pebble Beach in 1947.
Byron Nelson wins The Masters, making up six strokes on fellow Texan Ralph Guldahl on the twelfth and thirteenth holes of the final round.
Denny Shute wins his second consecutive PGA Championship.
The United States wins the Ryder Cup on British soil for the first time.

1938
A new USGA Rule limits players to fourteen clubs. Some players (e.g., Lawson Little) have been carrying as many as twenty-five. The Rule is designed to restore shot-making skill.
Sam Snead wins eight tournaments and shatters the earnings record with $19,534.
Ralph Guldahl wins his second consecutive U.S. Open, and third consecutive Western Open.
Patty Berg, twice a runner-up, wins the U.S. Women's Amateur at age twenty.

1939
The Ryder Cup is canceled because of the war in Europe.
Byron Nelson wins the U.S. Open in a playoff over Craig Wood and Denny Shute after Sam Snead makes an eight on the seventy-second hole.

1940
The Walker Cup is canceled because of the war. The British Open and Amateur are also canceled.
Ben Hogan wins his first individual title, the North & South Open, then takes the next two events as well.
Jimmy Demaret, the most colorful golfer of his generation, wins the first of three Masters titles despite Lloyd Mangrum's tournament-record round of 64.
Ed "Porky" Oliver would have tied for first in the U.S. Open, but he is disqualified from the playoff. While trying to beat a storm, Oliver and five other players start the final round before their scheduled starting times. Lawson Little defeats Gene Sarazen for the title.
Bryon Nelson beats Sam Snead, one up, in a match of titans for the PGA Championship.

1941
Craig Wood ends a string of frustrating runner-up finishes in major events by winning both The Masters and the U.S. Open.
The USGA develops a machine for testing golf-ball velocity at impact. Plans for limiting initial velocity are put on hold until after the war.

1942
A Rule change authorizes players to stop play on their own initiative if they consider themselves endangered by lightning.
The USGA cancels all its championships for the duration of the war. The PGA of America continues its Tour schedule, though it is an abbreviated one.
The United States government halts the manufacturing of golf equipment.
Sam Snead wins the PGA Championship. He had been granted a delay of several days before induction into the Navy so he could play in the event.
Byron Nelson beats Ben Hogan in a playoff for The Masters.
Ben Hogan wins the Hale America National Open, a charity event for the Navy Relief Fund and the USO. He shoots a second-round 62 en route to a 17-under-par total.

1943
The war takes a heavy toll on competitive golf. The PGA Tour is reduced to only three tournaments. There is no PGA Championship.
The Masters is canceled for the duration of the war.

1944
The PGA Tour is back up to 22 tournaments, though many players remain in military service.
The Tam O'Shanter Open offers a record purse of $42,000 and is won by Byron Nelson, who is exempt from military service because of a blood disorder.

1945
Byron Nelson wins a record 11 consecutive tournaments from March through August, and 18 during the year. While fields aren't at full strength, Sam Snead and Ben Hogan each are on hand for part of the year.
Ben Hogan sets a 72-hole scoring record with 261; two weeks later, Byron Nelson breaks it with 259.

1946
Ben Hogan wins 13 PGA Tour events, including the PGA Championship, but loses The Masters and U.S. Open by one stroke.
Sam Snead wins the British Open at the Old Course in St. Andrews, Scotland. On passing the course on a train on his way to the championship, Snead declares, "That looks like an old, abandoned golf course."
The first U.S. Women's Open is held, and the only one ever waged at match play. Patty Berg is the champion.
Byron Nelson retires at age 34 after winning six tournaments during the year.

1947

The USGA revises and simplifies the Rules of Golf, going from 61 Rules to 21. The R & A doesn't go along, however.
South African Bobby Locke storms onto the PGA Tour with six victories.
The U.S. Open is televised - but only locally - on KSD-TV in St. Louis.
Babe Didrikson Zaharias is the first American to win the British Ladies' Open Amateur. She turns pro later in the year.
Golf World magazine begins publishing.

1948

The first U.S. Junior Amateur is played, with Dean Lind beating future U.S. Open champion Ken Venturi in the championship match.
Bobby Locke wins the Chicago Victory National Championship by 16 strokes, establishing a PGA Tour record.
Ben Hogan captures the first of four U.S. Opens with a record score of 276. He also wins the PGA Championship.
Golf Journalmagazine - originally USGA Journal Combining Timely Turf Topics - appears.
African-American professionals Ted Rhodes and Bill Spiller finish in the top 25 at the Los Angeles Open, one of the few tournaments open to African-Americans. They remain excluded from most PGA Tour events under a rule that leaves the decision up to tournament sponsors

1949

Sam Snead wins The Masters by finishing 67-67. Later, he adds the PGA Championship.
Marlene Bauer, 15, wins the inaugural U.S. Girls' Junior Championship, and turns pro later in the year.
The Ladies Professional Golf Association, under dynamic tournament manager Fred Corcoran, replaces the struggling Women's Professional Golf Association.
Louise Suggs wins the U.S. Women's Open by 14 strokes

1950

Ben Hogan returns to the Tour a year after nearly being killed in an automobile accident and wins the U.S. Open at Merion in an 18-hole playoff.
Jimmy Demaret wins his third Masters.
Babe Zaharias wins the U.S. Women's Open by nine strokes.
Sam Snead wins 11 events on the PGA Tour.
1951

The USGA and R&A hold a joint conference and agree on a uniform Rules of Golf worldwide, effective the following year. The only remaining difference is the size of the ball (the R&A permits a diameter of 1.62 inches compared with the USGA's 1.68 inches). The stymie is abolished, center-shafted putters are legalized (in Britain center-shafted putters had been illegal since 1909), and the out-of-bounds penalty is made stroke and distance.
Ben Hogan wins The Masters and a second consecutive U.S. Open. The latter victory comes at Oakland Hills, deemed a "monster" after its redesign by Robert Trent Jones Sr., in 1950.
Golf Digest begins publishing.

1952

General Dwight David Eisenhower is elected U.S. President. During his eight years in office, his cottage at Augusta National becomes the "Little White House."
Jack Burke Jr. wins four consecutive events on the PGA Tour, second in history to Byron Nelson's 11.
Patty Berg shoots an LPGA-record 64 in the Richmond Open.
Julius Boros captures the U.S. Open. He also wins the biggest first-place prize, $25,000, at the World Championship.

1953

Ben Hogan takes the three majors he enters - The Masters, U.S. Open and British Open. It is his fourth U.S. Open title.
The first nationally televised tournament, the World Championship, ends with a moment of high drama when Lew Worsham holes out from 135 yards to eagle the final hole and win by one.
Tommy Armour's popular instruction book, How to Play Your Best Golf All the Time, published .

1954
The U.S. Open is televised nationally for the first time. Also new - the holes are roped for gallery control.
Babe Zaharias wins the U.S. Women's Open by twelve strokes a year after undergoing cancer surgery.
Sam Snead beats Ben Hogan in a playoff to win The Masters after amateur Billy Joe Patton falters on the final nine holes of regulation play.
The World Championship has the first $100,000 purse, with $50,000 going to the winner - five times more than the next largest first prize. Bob Toski earns the windfall.

1955
Unheralded Jack Fleck stuns Ben Hogan with his U.S. Open playoff win at The Olympic Club.
Arnold Palmer scores his first professional victory in the Canadian Open.
Life Magazine pays Ben Hogan $20,000 for a cover story revealing the "secret" he discovered nine years earlier which rid him of a hook.

1956
Jack Burke, Jr., makes up an eight-stroke deficit on amateur Ken Venturi to win The Masters. Burke also takes the PGA Championship.
Australian Peter Thomson wins his third consecutive British Open.
Cary Middlecoff captures his second U.S. Open title.
Yardage for guidance in computing par are increased to current levels:
Three - up to 250 yards
Four - 251 to 470 yards
Five - 471 yards and over

1957
Jackie Pung finishes as the apparent winner of the U.S. Women's Open, but is disqualified for signing an incorrect scorecard. Betsy Rawls takes the title.
Bobby Locke wins his fourth British Open with a record tying 279.
Great Britain triumphs in the Ryder Cup for the first time since 1933.
Ben Hogan publishes an instructional classic: Five Lessons: The Modern Fundamentals of Golf .
Charlie Sifford wins the Long Beach Open, an event "cosponsored" by the PGA.

1958
A new USGA system provides just one handicap for golfers, not "current" and "basic."
Arnold Palmer wins his first of four Masters titles.
At age twenty-three Mickey Wright sweeps the U.S. Women's Open and LPGA Championship.
The PGA Championship changes from match play to stroke play. Dow Finsterwald claims the title.
The USGA and R&A organize the World Amateur Golf Council, and hold the first World Amateur Team Championship at the Old Course in St. Andrews, Scotland. Bobby Jones serves as captain of the American squad.

1959
Mickey Wright wins her second consecutive U.S. Women's Open.
Bill Wright becomes the first African-American player to take a national championship, claiming the U.S. Amateur Public Links.
Nineteen-year-old Jack Nicklaus captures first of two U.S. Amateur titles.
Betsy Rawls wins 10 LPGA tournaments.

1960
Arnold Palmer, golf's most popular player, has his greatest year. He wins The Masters with birdies on the last two holes, the U.S. Open with a final-round 65, finishes second in the British Open, and wins eight PGA Tour events.
Betsy Rawls wins her fourth U.S. Women's Open.

1961
Mickey Wright wins three majors - the U.S. Women's Open, LPGA Championship, and the Titleholders - and 10 events in all.
The PGA of America drops the Caucasians-only clause from its constitution, allowing African-Americans to become members.
Arnold Palmer wins the British Open; his appearances in the event starting in 1960 convince more American players to make the trip.
Jerry Barber sinks monster putts of 40 and 60 feet on the last two holes to tie Don January for the PGA Championship; Barber then wins the 18-hole playoff by a stroke.
Anne Quast Sander wins the U.S. Women's Amateur by a record 14 and 13 margin over Phyllis Preuss.
There are now 5 million golfers in the United States, according to the National Golf Foundation.

1962
Rookie professional Jack Nicklaus beats hometown favorite Arnold Palmer to win the U.S. Open in a playoff at Oakmont Country Club near Pittsburgh.
Arnold Palmer wins The Masters, British Open, and seven PGA Tour events.
Mickey Wright wins 10 tournaments for the second consecutive year.
For the first time, water hazards are marked with painted lines at the U.S. Open.

1963
Arnold Palmer is the first player to surpass $100,000 in earnings in a single year.
Jack Nicklaus wins The Masters and PGA Championship.
At the age of 20 years, 6 months, Ray Floyd is the youngest player to win a PGA Tour event (the St. Petersburg Open) since 1928.
New Zealand's Bob Charles becomes the only left-hander to win one of the four major championships, claiming the British Open.
Mickey Wright wins 13 events on the LPGA Tour.
Clubmakers are experimenting with the casting method for making irons, enabling them to create a larger "sweet spot" than forged blades offer.

1964
Pete Brown becomes the first African-American to win an "official" PGA Tournament, taking the Waco Turner Open.
Ken Venturi wins the U.S. Open despite suffering from heat prostration during a 36-hole final day at Congressional Country Club outside Washington, D.C.
Mickey Wright wins her fourth U.S. Open, one of 11 tournaments she captures during the year.
Bobby Nichols wins the PGA Championship with a 72-hole total of 271.
Arnold Palmer, for the fourth time, wins The Masters.

1965
Sam Snead earns his 81st and final PGA Tour victory in the Greater Greensboro Open, while becoming the Tour's oldest winner ever at 52 years, 10 months.
The U.S. Amateur changes from match play to stroke play. The U.S. Open is held over four days instead of three; no more 36 holes on the final day.
Jack Nicklaus wins The Masters by nine strokes with a record 271 total. Tournament host Bobby Jones says Nicklaus "plays a game with which I am not familiar."
Gary Player joins Ben Hogan and Gene Sarazen to become the third player in history to win all four majors when he captures the U.S. Open. The South African is the first foreign winner of the Open in 45 years. He donates his winners check back to the USGA in support of junior golf.
Peter Thomson earns his fifth British Open.

1966
Billy Casper wins the U.S. Open in a playoff after Arnold Palmer drops a seven-stroke lead over the last nine holes of regulation at The Olympic Club in San Francisco, Calif.
Jack Nicklaus takes his third Masters in four years and second in a row. He also is the British Open champion, becoming the fourth player to win all four major events.

1967
Jack Nicklaus takes the U.S. Open with a record total of 275 at Baltusrol Golf Club in New Jersey.
Catherine Lacoste of France becomes the only amateur to win the U.S. Women's Open.
Forty-five-year-old Charlie Sifford wins the Greater Hartford Open.

1968
Croquet-style putting, recently employed by Sam Snead, is ruled illegal by the USGA.
The Tournament Players Division is created within the PGA.
Roberto De Vicenzo loses The Masters when he signs an incorrect scorecard for one stroke higher than he actually shot. He would have been in an 18-hole playoff with Bob Goalby, who is declared the winner.
Lee Trevino is the first player to break 70 for all four rounds in a U.S. Open, winning with a record-tying 275 total.
Forty-eight-year-old Julius Boros is the oldest player to claim a major title, winning the PGA Championship.
Jo Anne Gunderson Carner wins her fifth U.S. Women's Amateur.
Arnold Palmer becomes the first player to top $1 million in career earnings.
Kathy Whitworth and Carol Mann each win 10 tournaments on the LPGA Tour.

1969
Jo Anne Carner is the last amateur to win an LPGA Tour event, the Burdine's Invitational.
Tony Jacklin is the first homebred player to win the British Open in 18 years.

1970
Mickey Wright retires from full-time competition at age 34, while Jo Anne Carner turns professional at age 30 after an outstanding amateur career.
England's Tony Jacklin wins the U.S. Open.
Jack Nicklaus wins the British Open in a playoff after Doug Sanders misses a 3-foot putt on the 72nd green.
Lanny Wadkins beats Tom Kite by one stroke to win the U.S. Amateur.
1971

Lee Trevino becomes the first player to win the U.S., British, and Canadian Open with his three victories in a four-week stretch. Tiger Woods would match that feat in 2000.
Astronaut Alan Shepard takes the game to new frontiers by hitting a 6-iron shot during a walk on the moon.
With his PGA Championship victory, Jack Nicklaus becomes the first player to win all the majors twice.
The number of golfers in the U.S. has doubled in the last 10 years - there are now 10 million.

1972

Jack Nicklaus wins The Masters and U.S. Open, then is thwarted in his bid for the Grand Slam by Lee Trevino in the British Open.
The Colgate-Dinah Shore Winners Circle debuts on the LPGA Tour, offering the first six-figure purse in women's golf -- $110,000.
Spalding introduces the two-piece Top-Flite ball, constructed with a solid core inside a durable synthetic cover.
Title IX legislation is passed by Congress, forcing colleges to provide more opportunities for female athletes. The expansion of women's college golf increases the talent pool of the LPGA Tour.
Carolyn Cudone wins her fifth consecutive USGA Senior Women's Amateur, a record for any USGA event.

1973

Johnny Miller becomes the U.S. Open Champion, firing a record 63 in the final round at Oakmont.
Tom Weiskopf takes five tournaments, including the British Open, in a two-month stretch.
Gene Sarazen, age 71, scores an ace on the "Postage Stamp" hole during the British Open at Royal Troon.
Ben Crenshaw bursts onto the PGA Tour by winning his first event as a member, the San Antonio Texas Open.
The U.S. Amateur returns to match play; the winner is Craig Stadler.
Kathy Whitworth is the LPGA Player of the Year for the seventh time in eight years.
The graphite shaft is introduced.

1974

Johnny Miller wins eight PGA Tour events.
Deane Beman becomes Commissioner of the PGA Tour.
The Tournament Players Championship makes its debut.
The Muirfield Village Golf Club, designed by Jack Nicklaus and Desmond Muirhead, opens near Nicklaus' hometown of Columbus, Ohio.
Sandra Haynie sweeps the U.S. Women's Open and LPGA Championship.

1975

Jack Nicklaus wins his fifth Masters in a classic battle with Tom Weiskopf and Johnny Miller. Nicklaus also takes his fourth PGA Championship.
Lee Elder becomes the first African-American to play in The Masters.
Nineteen-year-old Amy Alcott wins in just her third LPGA Tour event.

1976

Ray Floyd wins The Masters with a record tying 271 total.
Judy Rankin, with $150,734 in earnings, becomes the first LPGA Tour player to earn more than $100,000 in a season.
The USGA adopts the Overall Distance Standard for golf balls, limiting them to 280 yards under standard test conditions.
Jack Nicklaus leads the PGA Tour in earnings for the eighth and final time.

1977

Al Geiberger is the first PGA Tour player to break 60, shooting a 59 in the Danny Thomas Memphis Classic.
Tom Watson hits the big time, besting Jack Nicklaus in both The Masters and the British Open. Watson's 268 sets a British Open record.
The U.S. Open is the first American golf event to provide television coverage of all 18 holes.
A major championship is decided by sudden death for the first time when Lanny Wadkins beats Gene Littler in the PGA Championship at Pebble Beach.

1978

Nancy Lopez gives the LPGA Tour a boost by winning five tournaments in a row, and nine in all, during her first full season.
Gary Player takes his third Masters by shooting a 64 in the final round, then wins the next two events as well.
Jack Nicklaus's third British Open title gives him at least three wins in all four majors.
The Legends of Golf debuts, an event that will lead to the birth of the Senior Tour (now called the Champions Tour).

1979

TaylorMade introduces its first metal wood. In the next decade, metal woods will become predominant.
The USGA plants a tree overnight at the Inverness Club in Toledo, Ohio to block a shortcut taken by several players in the first round of the U.S. Open.
Sixty-seven-year-old Sam Snead shoots a 66 during the Quad Cities Open.
Twenty-two-year-old Seve Ballesteros wins the British Open at Royal Lytham & St. Annes.

1980

Jack Nicklaus captures the U.S. Open (his fourth) and PGA Championship (his fifth) at age 40. He shoots a U.S. Open record 272 in the Open at Baltusrol and ties the 18-hole record with a 63.
The USGA adds the U.S. Senior Open to its list of Championships. Roberto De Vicenzo is the inaugural Champion.
Tom Watson leads the PGA Tour money list for an unprecedented fourth consecutive year. He wins six U.S. events and the British Open.
The Tournament Players Club at Sawgrass, designed by Pete Dye, opens near Jacksonville, Fla. It is the first "stadium course," and the first course of the PGA Tour's TPC network.
The USGA introduces the golf ball Symmetry Standard to the Rules of Golf.

1981

Kathy Whitworth is the first woman golfer to top $1million in career earnings.
The USGA adds the U.S. Mid-Amateur Championship for players 25 and older, an event in which career amateurs won't have to face college golfers, who often dominate the U.S. Amateur.
Tom Kite finishes in the top 10 in 21 of 26 tournaments and leads the PGA Tour money list.

1982

Tom Watson takes his only U.S. Open, chipping in on the 71st hole to beat Jack Nicklaus at Pebble Beach.
Juli Inkster takes her third consecutive U.S. Women's Amateur, the first to accomplish this feat in 48 years.
Kathy Whitworth breaks Mickey Wright's record for career LPGA victories by winning her 83rd event. She will later take five more.
Jan Stephenson wins the LPGA Championship, and the next year, the U.S. Women's Open.

1983

For the fifth time, Tom Watson is the British Open champion.

1984

Golf instruction videotapes begin to hit the market.
Hollis Stacy takes her third U.S. Women's Open to go with her three U. S. Girls' Junior titles.
Forty-year-old Lee Trevino is the PGA titleholder, giving him two U.S. Open, British Open, and PGA titles.

1985

The USGA introduces the Slope System to adjust handicaps according to the difficulty of the course being played.
Europe beats the U.S. in the Ryder Cup for the first time since 1957 (the Great Britain and Ireland team was expanded to include all of Europe in 1979). Two years later, the European team wins for the first time on U.S. soil.
T.C. Chen drops a four-stroke lead in the U.S. Open at Oakland Hills by double-hitting a chip shot and making a quadruple bogey on the fifth hole. Andy North wins the championship.

1986

Forty-six-year-old Jack Nicklaus wins his sixth Masters and 18th professional major.
Forty-three-year-old Ray Floyd wins the U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in Southampton, N.Y., the first Open played at the club in 90 years.
Bob Tway holes out from a greenside bunker on the 72nd hole to break a tie and beat Greg Norman in the PGA Championship.
Pat Bradley wins three LPGA majors - the Nabisco Dinah Shore, LPGA Championship, and du Maurier Classic.
Greg Norman wins nine events worldwide (two in the U.S., three in Europe, and four in Australia).
There are now 20 million golfers and 12,384 courses in the U.S.

1987

Larry Mize beats Greg Norman in a sudden-death playoff at The Masters by holing a 100-foot pitch on the second extra hole.
Judy Bell becomes the first woman elected to the USGA Executive Committee.
The PGA Tour tops $30 million in prize money; the new season-ending Nabisco Championship is the first $2 million event.
Nick Faldo pars all 18 holes of the final round in the British Open to win his first major.
Craig Stadler is disqualified from the Shearson Lehman Brothers Andy Williams San Diego Open for kneeling on a towel to play a shot, then signing an incorrect scorecard.

1988

Mary Bea Porter interrupts her qualifying round for the LPGA's Standard Register Classic to resuscitate a boy who had fallen into a nearby swimming pool.
Seve Ballesteros wins his third British Open - one of seven victories during the year in seven different countries.
Curtis Strange becomes the first player to collect $1 million in season earnings on the PGA Tour.
The groove wars begin. The USGA rules that Ping Eye2 irons don't conform to the Rules because the grooves are too close together. Karsten Manufacturing, maker of Ping, files suit. A settlement will be reached in 1990 under which new Pings are modified to conform and existing Pings are deemed acceptable.

1989

The PGA Tour announces it will ban square-groove irons next year, but Karsten Manufacturing wins a court injunction against the move. Four years later, in an out-of-court settlement, the Tour reverses itself and permits square grooves.
Curtis Strange wins his second consecutive U.S. Open, the first to do so since Ben Hogan (1950 and 1951).

1990

After a controversy at the PGA Championship site Shoal Creek Country Club in Birmingham, Ala., the PGA of America and PGA Tour announce they will not play tournaments at clubs that have no African-American or women members.
Robert Gamez beats Greg Norman in the Nestle Invitational by holing a seven-iron from 176 yards on the 72nd hole.
Hale Irwin, at age 45, becomes the oldest U.S. Open winner.
Nick Faldo becomes the first player since Jack Nicklaus (1965 and 1966) to capture consecutive Masters titles. He also wins the British Open.
Phil Mickelson sweeps the U.S. Amateur and NCAA Championship, a feat not accomplished since Jack Nicklaus.
The R&A adopts the American-sized ball (1.68 inches) as standard all over the world.

1991

Long-hitting rookie John Daly overpowers the field in the PGA Championship, after making the field as an alternate.
Amateur Phil Mickelson wins the PGA Tour's Northern Telecom Open at age 20.
Chip Beck shoots a 59 during the Las Vegas Invitational to tie Al Geiberger's PGA Tour record.
Payne Stewart claims the U.S. Open at Hazeltine in a playoff with Scott Simpson.

1992

Fred Couples' victory at The Masters puts him over $1million in earnings in the second week of April.
The PGA Tour tops $50 million in purses; the LPGA and Senior Tours both go over $20 million.
Ray Floyd, at age 49, wins the Doral Ryder Open 29 years after his first PGA Tour victory. Later in the year, he wins on the Senior Tour.
Betsy King wins the LPGA Championship by 11 strokes with a 72-hole record 267.
John F. Merchant, a Connecticut attorney, is the first African-American elected to the USGA Executive Committee.
Nick Faldo captures his third British Open.

1993

Bernard Langer wins his second Masters.
Greg Norman wins his second British Open. Norman's 267 total sets a British Open record.
For the third consecutive year, Tiger Woods is the U.S. Junior Amateur champion. No other player has repeated in the event.
Sarah LeBrun Ingram becomes the first player to take the U.S. Women's Mid-Amateur Championship twice. The event began in 1987.

1994

Nick Price wins the British Open at Turnberry, aided by a final-round eagle on the 17th hole.
Tim Finchem succeeds Deane Beman as Commissioner of the PGA Tour.
Arnold Palmer bids farewell to the U.S. Open in a stirring march up the 18th fairway at Oakmont.
Patty Sheehan wins the U.S. Women's Open at Indianwood, her second in three years.
Nick Price wins his second major of the year -- the PGA Championship at Southern Hills.

1995

Corey Pavin claims the USGA's Centennial U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills.
Ben Crenshaw wins The Masters just days after the death of his mentor and teacher Harvey Penick.
Tiger Woods wins his second consecutive U.S. Amateur Championship, held at Newport (R.I.) Country Club.
At St. Andrews, John Daly captures the British Open, his second career major.
The European team wins the Ryder Cup at Oak Hill by the margin of 14Â½-13Â½.

1996

Judy Bell becomes the first woman elected President of the USGA.
Nick Faldo overtakes Greg Norman to win The Masters.
Tiger Woods wins his third consecutive U.S. Amateur Championship at Pumpkin Ridge. Later, he joins the PGA Tour, wins twice, and earns Rookie of the Year honors.
Tom Watson wins the Memorial Tournament - his first victory in nine years.
Kelli Kuehne wins her second consecutive U.S. Women's Amateur title, and later adds the British Ladies Open Amateur.
Annika Sorenstam wins her second consecutive Women's Open Championship, held at Pine Needles.

1997

Tiger Woods wins The Masters in record fashion, with an 18-under-par total and a 12-stroke margin of victory.
Ernie Els wins the U.S. Open at Congressional, his second in four years.
The first Ryder Cup is held on Continental European soil, at Valderrama in Spain. The European team wins.
Justin Leonard wins the British Open at Royal Troon, carding a final-round 65.
Jack Nicklaus competes in the U.S. Open at Congressional -- his 150th consecutive major championship.

1998

Lee Janzen wins his second U.S. Open title of the 90's at The Olympic Club in San Francisco, Calif.
Casey Martin is awarded the right to ride in a golf cart at the U.S. Open.
Mark O'Meara, at age 41, becomes the oldest player to win The Masters and the British Open in the same year.
Vijay Singh, with a victory at the PGA Championship, wins his first major; it is the first major championship claimed by a player from Fiji.
Se Ri Pak, a 19-year-old phenom from Korea, captivates the LPGA Tour with major wins at the U.S. Women's Open and the LPGA Championship.

1999

Thirteen-year-old Aree Wongluekiet becomes the youngest winner in USGA history by capturing the Girls' Junior championship at Green Spring Valley Hunt Club.
The U.S. wins the Ryder Cup in dramatic comeback at The Country Club in Brookline, Mass.
Paul Lawrie, a native of Scotland, wins the British Open in a three-way playoff when Frenchman Jean Van de Velde collapses on the 72nd hole.
Jose Maria Olazabal wins his second Masters.
The U.S. Senior Open attracts record crowds of over 250,000 in Des Moines, Iowa.
Payne Stewart wins his second U.S. Open title at Pinehurst, sinking a dramatic par putt on the 72nd hole. Tragically, he perishes along with five others in a plane crash four months later.
Juli Inkster smashes the U.S. Women's Open scoring record at Old Waverly. Later in the year, with a victory in the Safeway LPGA Golf Championship, she earns entry into the LPGA Hall of Fame.
The USGA implements testing protocol for "spring-like" effect in metal woods.

2000

The USGA celebrates the 100th playing of the U.S. Open, U.S. Amateur, and U.S. Women's Amateur, as well as the 75th playing of the U.S. Amateur Public Links.
Shigeki Maruyama cards a 58 in sectional qualifying for the U.S. Open.
At 10 years of age, Michelle Wie becomes the youngest player to compete in a USGA women's amateur competition when she qualifies for the Women's Amateur Public Links in Aberdeen, N.C.
Tiger Woods rolls to a record 15-stroke victory at the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach (Calif.) Golf Links. It is Woods' first Open title and his seventh USGA championship. He would go on to win the season's final two major championships, the British Open at St. Andrews and the PGA Championship at Valhalla, becoming the first golfer since Ben Hogan in 1953 to win three majors in a year.
By defeating Anna Schultz, 3 and 2, in the final of the Women's Mid-Amateur, Ellen Port becomes only the second player in the championship's history to win three Women's Mid-Amateur titles, joining Sarah LeBrun Ingram.

2001

Tiger Woods is the first player to hold all four professional-major titles at one time when he captures The Masters in April. It becomes known as the "The Tiger Slam."
Retief Goosen of South Africa wins the U.S. Open at Southern Hills in an 18-hole playoff over Mark Brooks.
Karrie Webb rolls to an eight-shot victory at the U.S. Women's Open at Pine Needles and joins six others (Mickey Wright, Donna Caponi, Susie Maxwell Berning, Hollis Stacy, Betsy King and Annika Sorenstam) as back-to-back winners of this championship.
Annika Sorenstam becomes the first female golfer to ever shoot a 59 in an LPGA event, achieving the feat at the Standard Register PING in Phoenix, Ariz.
Christina Kim registers the lowest 18-hole score in any USGA championship when she fires a 62 in the second round of stroke-play qualifying at the U.S. Girls' Junior at Indian Hills Country Club in Mission Hills, Kan.
James Vargas establishes a U.S. Junior 36-hole stroke-play scoring record of 132 at Oak Hills Country Club in San Antonio, Texas.
Meredith Duncan outlasts Nicole Perrot in a 37-hole thriller for the U.S. Women's Amateur title at Flint Hills National Golf Club in Wichita, Kan. The loss prevented Perrot from becoming the first golfer to capture the U.S. Girls' Junior and Women's Amateur in the same year.
In the first 36-hole final in U.S. Mid-Amateur history, Tim Jackson defeats George Zahringer, 1 up, at San Joaquin Country Club in Fresno, Calif.
The Great Britain and Ireland Walker Cup team registers a 15-9 victory over the USA squad at Ocean Forest Golf Club. It's the first time the GB&I squad had posted consecutive victories over the USA in the 79-year history of the Match.
Kemp Richardson joins his later father, John, as the only father-son duo to capture a USGA championship, when he defeats Bill Ploeger, 2 and 1, for the USGA Senior Amateur crown at Norwood Hills Country Club in St. Louis, Mo. John Richardson also won the Senior Amateur title in 1987 at Saucon Valley Country Club in Bethlehem, Pa.

2002
For the first time ever, the U.S. Open is held at a publicly owned facility (Bethpage State Park's Black Course). Tiger Woods wins the title by three strokes over Phil Mickelson and is the only player in the field to finish under par (-3).
Ernie Els ends Tiger Woods' hopes for a Grand Slam by taking the British Open at Muirfield in a playoff over Steve Elkington, Thomas Levet and Stuart Appleby. Woods had won the Masters and U.S. Open titles.
Juli Inkster returns to the site of her first Women's Amateur championship (Prairie Dunes Country Club in Hutchinson, Kan.) and fires a final-round 66 to beat Annika Sorenstam by two strokes for her second U.S. Women's Open title. Inkster joined Jack Nicklaus as the only players to win a U.S. Amateur and Open at the same course.
Carol Semple Thompson, playing in her record 12th Curtis Cup Match, sinks a 27-foot birdie putt from the fringe at the 18th hole to secure the USA's 11-7 victory over Great Britain and Ireland. The dramatic putt was fitting since the Match was played in Thompson's hometown of Pittsburgh, Pa., at the Fox Chapel Golf Club. It was also Thompson's 18th victory in Curtis Cup play, another record.
George Zahringer, at 49, becomes the oldest player to win the U.S. Mid-Amateur title, when he defeats Jerry Courville Jr., 3 and 2, at his home course, The Stanwich Club in Greenwich, Conn.
Carol Semple Thompson, en route to winning her fourth consecutive USGA Senior Women's Amateur championship at Mid-Pines Inn and Golf Club in Southern Pines, N.C., establishes a consecutive match-play winning streak record of 24.

2003

Michelle Wie, 13, becomes the youngest champion of an adult USGA championship when she defeats Virada Nirapathponporn in the final of the Women's Amateur Public Links Championship at Ocean Hammock Golf Club in Palm Coast, Fla.
Jim Furyk establishes a 54-hole U.S. Open scoring record of 200 en route to a three-stroke victory over Stephen Leaney. Furyk's 72-hole total of 272 tied an Open mark held by Jack Nicklaus, Lee Janzen and Tiger Woods.
Hilary Lunke outlasts Angela Stanford and Kelly Robbins in an 18-hole playoff for the U.S. Women's Open title. Lunke becomes the first player since Annika Sorenstam in 1995 to make the Women's Open her first professional victory. Lunke also is the first champion to have won by going through local and sectional qualifying.

Golf House & USGA Museum at Far Hills

2011-11-10T07:52:00.000-08:00

The foundation of the United States Golf Association on Dec. 22, 1894 marked the formal organization of American golf, establishing a centralized body to write the Rules, conduct national championships and establish a national system of handicapping. The USGA also plays a prominent role as the game's historian in the United States, collecting, displaying and preserving artifacts and memorabilia at its Museum and Archives in Far Hills, N.J.

The USGA HQ was at Golf House in New York City (Left) until it moved to Far Hills, NJ.

About the USGA

The USGA is the national governing body of golf in the USA and Mexico. The USGA annually conducts the U.S. Open, U.S. Women’s Open, U.S. Senior Open and 10 national amateur championships. It also conducts two state team championships and helps conduct the Walker Cup Match, Curtis Cup Match and World Amateur Team Championships.

The USGA also writes the Rules of Golf, conducts equipment testing, provides expert course maintenance consultations, funds research for better turf and a better environment, maintains a Handicap System®, celebrates the history of the game, and administers an ongoing “For the Good of the Game” grants program, which has allocated more than $65 million over 13 years to successful programs that bring the game’s values to youths from disadvantaged backgrounds and people with disabilities. For more information about the USGA, visit www.usga.org.

The USGA Museum and Arnold Palmer Center for Golf History showcases the nation’s largest and most significant collection of golf artifacts and documents. The interactive multimedia exhibits tell the story of the game’s development in the United States, highlighting the greatest moments in the game’s history, with a particular focus on United States Golf Association champions and championships. Visitors also have the opportunity to tour the USGA Research and Test Center and play a round on the Pynes Putting Course. For more information about the USGA Museum, or to visit the Museum in Somerset County, N.J., visit the Museum Web site at www.usgamuseum.com or call (908) 234-2300.

About The PGA of America

Since 1916, The PGA of America's mission has been twofold; to establish and elevate the standards of the profession and to grow interest and participation in the game of golf. By establishing and elevating the standards of the golf profession through world-class education, career services, marketing and research programs, the Association enables PGA Professionals to maximize their performance in their respective career paths and showcases them as experts in the game and in the multi-billion dollar golf industry.

By creating and delivering dramatic world-class championships and exciting and enjoyable golf promotions that are viewed as the best of their class in the golf industry, The PGA of America elevates the public’s interest in the game, the desire to play more golf, and ensures accessibility to the game for everyone, everywhere. The PGA of America brand represents the very best in golf.

The United States Golf Association
P.O. Box 708
Far Hills, N.J. 07931
908-234-2300 Fax: 908-234-9687

Frequent Q & A
By Dr. Rand Jerris

What is the origin of the word 'golf?'

The word 'golf' is not an acronym for anything. Rather, it derives linguistically from the Dutch word 'kolf' or 'kolve,' meaning quite simply 'club.' In the Scottish dialect of the late 14th or early 15th century, the Dutch term became 'goff' or 'gouff,' and only later in the 16th century 'golf.'

The linguistic connections between the Dutch and Scottish terms are but one reflection of what was a very active trade industry between the Dutch ports and the ports on the east coast of Scotland from the 14th through 17th centuries.

Some scholars suggest that the Dutch game of 'kolf,' played with a stick and ball on frozen canals in the wintertime, was brought by the Dutch sailors to the east coast of Scotland, where it was transferred on to the public linkslands and eventually became the game we know today.

How did the terms 'birdie' and 'eagle' come into golf?

The term 'birdie' originated in the United States in 1899. H.B. Martin's "Fifty Years of American Golf" contains an account of a foursomes match played at the Atlantic City (N.J.) CC. One of the players, Ab Smith relates: "my ball... came to rest within six inches of the cup. I said 'That was a bird of a shot... I suggest that when one of us plays a hole in one under par he receives double compensation.' The other two agreed and we began right away, just as soon as the next one came, to call it a 'birdie.' In 19th century American slang, 'bird' refereed to anyone or anything excellent or wonderful.

By analogy with 'birdie,' the term 'eagle' soon thereafter became common to refer to a score one better than a 'bird.' Also by analogy, the term 'albatross' for double eagle - an even bigger eagle!

What is the origin of the word 'bogey?'

The term 'bogey' comes from a song that was popular in the British Isles in the early 1890s, called "The Bogey Man" (later known as "The Colonel Bogey March"). The character of the song was an elusive figure who hid in the shadows: "I'm the Bogey Man, catch me if you can."

Golfers in Scotland and England equated the quest for the elusive Bogey Man with the quest for the elusive perfect score. By the mid to late 1890s, the term 'bogey score' referred to the ideal score a good player could be expected to make on a hole under perfect conditions. It also came to be used to describe stroke play tournaments - hence, in early Rules books we find a section detailing the regulations for 'Bogey Competitions.' It was only in the late 1900s/early 1910s that the concept of 'Par' started to emerge - this being the designated number of strokes a scratch player could be expected to take on a hole in ideal conditions. In this way par was distinguished from bogey. The term par itself is a standard term in sports handicapping, where it simply means 'level' or 'even.'

What are the origins of the term 'dormie?'

Historically, the term dormie is derived from the French/Latin cognate 'dormir,' meaning 'to sleep,' suggesting that a player who is 'dormie' can relax (literally, go to sleep) without fear of losing the match.

Why do golfers shout 'Fore!' when they hit an errant shot?

The word 'fore' is Scottish in origin, and is a shortened version of the word 'before' or 'afore.' The old Scottish warning, essentially meaning "look out ahead," most probably originated in military circles, where it was used by artillery men as a warning to troops in forward positions. Golfers as early as the 18th century simply adopted this military warning cry for use on the links.

What is the definition of a 'links' course?

'Links' is a term that refers to a very specific geographic land form found in Scotland. Such tracts of low-lying, seaside land are characteristically sandy, treeless, and undulating, often with lines of dunes or dune ridges, and covered by bent grass and gorse. To be a true links, the tract of land must lie near the mouth of a river - that is, in an estuarine environment. From the Middle Ages onward, linksland (generally speaking, poor land for farming) were common grounds used for sports, including archery, bowls and golf.

Because many of the early courses of Scotland were built on these common linksland, golf courses and links have forever been associated. The term 'links' is commonly misapplied to refer to any golf course. But remember that a true links depends only on geography.

What is the origin of the popular golf game called 'skins?'

As a format of golf gambling, 'skins' has been around for decades, but really only became popular after the creation of "The Skins Game" in the 1980s. In other parts of the country, 'skins' is also known as 'cats,' 'scats,' 'skats,' or 'syndicates.' Of these, 'syndicates' seems to be the oldest term, going back at least to the 1950s, and possibly earlier. It has been suggested that 'skins,' 'scats,' etc. are simply shortened, simplified versions of the term 'syndicates.'

Why are there 18 holes on a golf course?

The links at St. Andrews occupy a narrow strip of land along the sea. As early as the 15th century, golfers at St. Andrews established a customary route through the undulating terrain, playing to holes whose locations were dictated by topography. The course that emerged featured eleven holes, laid out end to end from the clubhouse to the far end of the property. One played the holes out, turned around, and played the holes in, for a total of 22 holes. In 1764, several of the holes were deemed too short, and were therefore combined. The number was thereby reduced from 11 to nine, so that a complete round of the links comprised 18 holes.

When golf clubs in the UK formally recognized the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews as the rule-making body for the sport in the late 1890s, it became necessary for many clubs to expand or reduce the length of their course to eighteen holes. Prior to this time, courses ranged in length from six holes to upward of 20 holes. However, if golfers were to play by the official R&A rules, then their appointed round would consist of 18 holes.

Where does the word 'mulligan' come from?

There is considerable debate about this topic, to say the least. There are several clubs and several people who have staked claims about the origin of the term 'mulligan.'
The story most widely accepted focuses on a gentleman named David Mulligan who played at the St. Lambert CC in Montreal, Canada during the 1920s. There are several versions of the David Mulligan story.

Mr. Mulligan was a hotelier in the first half of the century, a part-owner and manager of the Biltmore Hotel in New York City, as well as several large Canadian hotels. One story says that the first mulligan was an impulsive sort of event - that one day Mulligan hit a very long drive off the first tee, just not straight, and acting on impulse re-teed and hit again. His partners found it all amusing, and decided that the shot that Mulligan himself called a 'correction shot' deserved a better named, so they called it a 'mulligan.'

Story two: Mulligan played regularly with a group of friends at St. Lambert, and in the morning he drove to pick up his golfing buddies. The road into the club was reportedly bumpy and windy and just sort of generally poor, with bridge of bumpy railroad ties. An extra shot was allotted to Mulligan, the driver of the car, on the first tee because he was jumpy and shaking from the difficult drive.

Story three: this story again identified a specific moment, citing a day when David Mulligan showed up late to the course, having scrambled to get out of bed late and get dressed and get to the course on time. He was frazzled on the first tee, hit a poor shot, and re-teed.

Another version of the 'mulligan' story comes from the Essex Fells CC in N.J. This story is one of the latest, and may therefore be less credible. According to this version, the term was named after a locker room attendant at the club named John A. 'Buddy' Mulligan, who worked at the club during the 1930s and was known for replaying shots, particularly on the first tee.

Dr. Rand Jerris
Compiled by Dr. Rand Jerris, former USGA Museum Curator

Golf Etiquette 101

Unlike many sports, golf is for the most part played without the supervision of a referee, umpire or coach. The game relies on the individual golfer to show consideration for other players and to abide by the rules. New golfers are often in need of advice about customary behavior and practices to follow on course so that play proceeds safely and without delay. Here are 10 tips to help all players get the maximum enjoyment from the game.

The Spirit of the Game

Unlike many sports, golf is played, for the most part, without the supervision of a referee or umpire. The game relies on the integrity of the individual to show consideration for other players and to abide by the Rules. All players should conduct themselves in a disciplined manner, demonstrating courtesy and sportsmanship at all times, irrespective of how competitive they may be. This is the spirit of the game of golf.

Consideration for Other Players

No Disturbance or Distraction

Players should always show consideration for other players on the course and should not disturb their play by moving, talking or making any unnecessary noise.

Players should ensure that any electronic device taken onto the course does not distract other players.

On the teeing ground, a player should not tee his ball until it is his turn to play.

Players should not stand close to or directly behind the ball, or directly behind the hole, when a player is about to play.

On the Putting Green

On the putting green, players should not stand on another player's line of putt or when he is making a stroke, cast a shadow over his line of putt.

Players should remain on or close to the putting green until all other players in the group have holed out.

Scoring

In stroke play, a player who is acting as a marker should, if necessary, on the way to the next tee, check the score with the player concerned and record it.

Pace of Play

Play at Good Pace and Keep Up

Players should play at a good pace. The Committee may establish pace of play guidelines that all players should follow.

It is a group's responsibility to keep up with the group in front. If it loses a clear hole and it is delaying the group behind, it should invite the group behind to play through, irrespective of the number of players in that group.

Be Ready to Play

Players should be ready to play as soon as it is their turn to play. When playing on or near the putting green, they should leave their bags or carts in such a position as will enable quick movement off the green and towards the next tee. When the play of a hole has been completed, players should immediately leave the putting green.

Lost Ball

If a player believes his ball may be lost outside a water hazard or is out of bounds, to save time, he should play a provisional ball.

Players searching for a ball should signal the players in the group behind them to play through as soon as it becomes apparent that the ball will not easily be found.

They should not search for five minutes before doing so. Having allowed the group behind to play through, they should not continue play until that group has passed and is out of range.

Priority on the Course

Unless otherwise determined by the Committee, priority on the course is determined by a group's pace of play. Any group playing a whole round is entitled to pass a group playing a shorter round.

Care of the Course

Bunkers

Before leaving a bunker, players should carefully fill up and smooth over all holes and footprints made by them and any nearby made by others. If a rake is within reasonable proximity of the bunker, the rake should be used for this purpose.

Repair of Divots, Ball-Marks and Damage by Shoes

Players should carefully repair any divot holes made by them and any damage to the putting green made by the impact of a ball (whether or not made by the player himself). On completion of the hole by all players in the group, damage to the putting green caused by golf shoes should be repaired.

Preventing Unnecessary Damage

Players should avoid causing damage to the course by removing divots when taking practice swings or by hitting the head of a club into the ground, whether in anger or for any other reason.

Players should ensure that no damage is done to the putting green when putting down bags or the flagstick.

In order to avoid damaging the hole, players and caddies should not stand too close to the hole and should take care during the handling of the flagstick and the removal of a ball from the hole. The head of a club should not be used to remove a ball from the hole.

Players should not lean on their clubs when on the putting green, particularly when removing the ball from the hole.

The flagstick should be properly replaced in the hole before players leave the putting green.

Local notices regulating the movement of golf carts should be strictly observed.

Conclusion; Penalties for Breach

If players follow the guidelines in this Section, it will make the game more enjoyable for everyone.

If a player consistently disregards these guidelines during a round or over a period of time to the detriment of others, it is recommended that the Committee consider taking appropriate disciplinary action against the offending player. Such action may, for example, include prohibiting play for a limited time on the course or in a certain number of competitions. This is considered to be justifiable in terms of protecting the interest of the majority of golfers who wish to play in accordance with these guidelines.

In the case of a serious breach of Etiquette, the Committee may disqualify a player under Rule 33-7.

NOT A MEMBER OF A GOLF CLUB?
START YOUR OWN.

Forming a golf club is not at all difficult. A "golf clubis an organization of at least ten individual members that operates under bylaws with committees (including a Handicap Committee) to supervise golf activities, provide peer review, and maintain the integrity of the USGA Handicap System™ (see Compliance Checklist, Section 8-2m; Decision 2/7). A golf club must be licensed by the USGA® to utilize the USGA Handicap System. A club can obtain a license agreement directly from the USGA or through its membership in an authorized golf association that is already licensed by the USGA and that has jurisdiction in the geographic area that includes the principal location of the golf club.

Members of a golf club must have a reasonable and regular opportunity to play golf with each other. They must be able to return scores personally. These scores must be readily available for inspection by others, including, but not limited to, fellow members and the club's Handicap Committee.

Each golf club must determine its type. A golf club is one of three (3) types:
1. It is located at a single specific golf course with a valid USGA Course Rating™ and USGA Slope Rating® where a majority of the club's events are played and the club's scoring records reside; or
2. Its members are affiliated or known to one another via a business, fraternal, ethnic or social organization. The majority of the club members had an affiliation prior to organizing the club; or
3. The members had no prior affiliation and a majority of the recruiting and sign-up of the membership is done by solicitation to the general public (e.g., Internet, newspaper).
An organization of amateur golfers at a public course is considered a golf club if it satisfies the above conditions. If a "golf club" which utilizes the USGA Handicap System is not readily available to you, you can create such a club with a minimum of ten golfers. The club can be formed from business associates or just golfing friends, provided that they live in a close geographic area and play golf regularly together.

Click to review a sample set of possible bylaws . The USGA Handicap System manual, which explains all procedures, can be purchased for $3.00 plus shipping through the USGA Order Department (Golf House, P.O. Box 708 , Far Hills , New Jersey 07931 ).

We want to make it possible for every golfer to get a USGA Handicap Index®. Golf is much more fun when you can compete equitably with any other golfer.
http://www.usga.org/handicapping/get_handicap/Forming-Your-Own-Golf-Club(2)/

USGA
GOLF CLUB
CONSTITUTION AND BY-LAWS

(Note 1: A newly forming golf club should modify and adapt the following Articles to fit its particular circumstances and review the document with its own counsel).
(Note 2: Statements in parenthesis are recommendations and may be modified as decided by the club).

Article I - NAME
The name of this golf club shall be ___________________________________________ Golf Club.

Article II - PURPOSE

FIRST: To stimulate interest in golf at the ____________________________________ (course or company) by bringing together a group of golfers desirous of forming a golfing organization.

SECOND: To promote and foster among the members a closer bond and fraternity for their joint and mutual benefit, and to promote and conserve the best interests and true spirit of the game of golf as embodied in its ancient and honorable traditions.

THIRD: To encourage conformance to the USGA Rules of Golf by creating a representative authority.

FOURTH: To maintain a uniform system of handicapping as set forth in the USGA Handicap System and issue USGA Handicap Indexes to the members.

FIFTH: To provide an authoritative body to govern and conduct club competitions.

Article III - MEMBERSHIP

Section 1. Membership shall be available to all (men/women) 18 years of age or older. There shall be a least 10 members with a maximum membership of (300).
Section 2. Memberships in the club are individual and non-transferable (which is associated with the ________________________________________ privately owned and operated golf course).
Section 3. Only golfers with a reasonable and regular opportunity to play golf with fellow members and who can personally return scores for posting may be members and receive USGA Handicap Indexes from the club.
Section 4. Membership confers no voice in the operation of any golf courses, clubhouses nor any facilities of the courses.
Section 5. Membership confers no special privileges in connection with any golf course.
Section 6. Memberships in the club are for a calendar year only, with all memberships expiring on (October 31st).
Section 7. The fiscal year for the club will be (November 1st through October 31st).
Section 8. Each candidate for membership shall be proposed and seconded by two active members in good standing. The Board of Directors shall act upon each proposal by vote and two negative votes shall disqualify any candidate.
Section 9. The Board of Directors may confer honorary memberships upon those whom they feel have contributed to the advancement of golf. The unanimous affirmative vote of the Board shall be required to approve such action.
Section 10. In the event that any member of the club shall commit any act which reflects discredit or disrepute thereon or shall refuse or neglect to comply with the rules and regulations adopted by the Board of Directors or the duly appointed officers, such member shall be subject to suspension or expulsion after (ten days) written notice and the right to be heard, by a vote of two-thirds of the Board of Directors at any regular meeting or special meeting called for such purpose.
Section 11. The annual meeting of the ________________________________________ shall be held on the (third Wednesday in the month of October). The Board of Directors shall provide for the holding of such other meetings as may be deemed necessary or desirable, and they shall call special meetings upon written petition signed by not less than (ten percent of the membership).
Section 12. A legal quorum at any meeting shall be (twenty) members present in person or by proxy. Each active member in good standing shall be entitled to one vote.
Section 13. All membership fees and dues shall be established by the Board of Directors from time to time in such amounts as they deem to be adequate to operate and maintain the club. Members shall be liable for dues until their written resignation has been received and accepted. All monies collected shall accrue to the benefit of the membership.

Article IV - BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Section 1. The Board of Directors shall consist of five members in good standing of the _______________________________________________ and they shall exercise all powers of management of the club not specifically excepted by these By-Laws. The Board of Directors shall include the General Manager of the golf courses or his nominee.
Section 2. At least five weeks prior to the Annual Meeting, the Board of Directors shall appoint a nominating committee consisting of five members of the organization. At least four weeks prior to the Annual Meeting, this committee shall submit to the Board and shall post upon the club bulletin board a list of nominees to fill any vacancies for the term o office beginning on the day of the meeting. Names of other members in good standing may be nominated by petition signed by a least (ten) members and submitted to the Board at least two weeks prior to the Annual Meeting. At least one week prior to the Annual Meeting, a list of all candidates nominated shall be mailed to each member at their last known address and a copy of such list shall be posted on the club bulletin board.
Section 3. Voting shall be written ballot and those names receiving the greatest number of votes cast shall be declared to be elected. The Board shall appoint a committee of three judges who are not members of the Board or candidates for election to supervise the election.
Section 4. The Board of Directors shall meet at such times and places as they may select and a majority of the Board shall constitute a quorum at any meeting.
Section 5. In the case of any vacancy through death, resignation, disqualification or other cause, the remaining directors, even though less than a quorum, may elect a successor by majority vote to hold office for the unexpired term of the director whose place shall be vacant, and until the election of his successor.

Article V - OFFICERS AND COMMITTEES
Section 1. Within (ten days) after the annual meeting and election, the Board of Directors shall meet and elect the officers.
Section 2. The officers shall consist of president, vice-president, secretary and treasurer, and their duties shall be such as their titles would indicate or such as may be assigned to them respectively from time to time.
Section 3. The Board of Directors shall authorize and define the powers and duties of all committees. Chairmen and members of all committees shall be appointed by the president, and the president shall be an ex-officio member of all committees except the nominating committee.
Section 4. The following committees shall be appointed each year, with such other committees as the president may deem necessary or advisable:
Tournament Committee to arrange and schedule with the management of any golf course as necessary, and conduct all intra-club and inter-club competitions.
Handicap Committee composed primarily of members with the responsibility to establish a fair and proper system of handicaps in accordance with procedures set forth in the USGA Handicap System Manual.
Membership Committee to investigate and act upon all applications for membership and to recommend appropriate action to the Board of Directors.
Social Committee to encourage and arrange social entertainment features and events for special occasions.

Article VI - AMENDMENTS TO BY-LAWS
Section 1. The Board of Directors shall have the power to repeal or amend any of these By-Laws provided that such action shall not be effective until approved by a majority vote of the members of _______________________________ club at a meeting held in accordance with the provisions contained herein.

Charlie Rose - Arnold Palmer - Interview Transcript

2011-10-12T00:48:00.000-07:00

Charlie Rose interviews Arnold Palmer
The transcript.

An hour with Arnold Palmer from Latrobe, Pennsylvania. http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11823

Charlie Rose: Arnold Palmer is with us for this hour. He is a legend who came out of the hills of Pennsylvania with his father’s hard driving lessons deep in his soul. He had the strength of a linebacker, and the magnetism of a movie star. All of that and he could hit a golf ball a mile and then roll it into a small hole with the touch of a master.

He won 4 Masters, 1 US Open, 2 British Opens and 62 PGA tour events. But never, never the PGA, although he came close, coming in second three times. He was once chosen the athlete of the decade, not only in his sport but in all sports.

Golf has never been the same. It is bigger, better and more popular in every dimension. He changed the game. Everyone that followed is indebted to him. No one has had an army like Arnie’s Army. No one has been so quoted by presidents, from Eisenhower to Obama. No one has had so much respect from his piers.

He and Jack Nicholas defined great rivalry. Like Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, like John McEnroe and Bjorn Borge, like the Red Sox and Yankees, like Duke and North Carolina.

When Jack Kennedy was in power. Arnold Palmer was winning everything.
He was the best. So good that the president wanted Arnie to look at his swing and come play around.

Arnold Palmer is a pilot and a hugely successful businessman. He and the late Mark McCormick showed us what endorsements were all about. He was most of all a competitor and a gentleman, and he still is as he approaches his 82 birthday.

We visited his home in Latrobe Pennsylvania – he still lives there and also in Florida with his second wife during the winter, right across by the golf course his father helped builds. Nearby is an office with enough awards to fill a museum.

We began with a tour of so many memories, and then a conversation about so many experiences.

Charlie Rose: This is a Norman Rockwell.

Arnold Palmer: That was done a number of years ago. Obviously.

CR: You asked me if I recognized this guy?

AP: Well I wasn’t sure you would recognize who it was.

CR: So Norman Rockwell did your picture.

CR: Not bad.

AP: This is a number of times I’ve been on the cover of Sports Illustrated.

CR: You and Sam (Snead).

AP: We played in the World Cup and won both times we played.

CR: You and Jack.

AP: Palmer: Casper.

CR: Billy Casper

AP: That’s the one we talk about every once in awhile.

CR: The toughest one. It’s the toughest one to win or the Masters?
Well you won more Masters.

AP: Of course I hung out at the Masters, that was social, I loved it.

CR: That’s your favorite.

AP: It had to be, but you can’t ignore the Open. It’s, it’s…

CR: The denizen of America.

AP: That’s one, that’s it.

CR: It’s the American national Championship.

AP: That’s it. The American Championship.

CR: Here’s when you turned 40 – 40 years ago. See how much you have changed.

CR: This is you and the famous Winnie.

CR: Sports Illustrated, that’s 1967. There you are. Let’s look at that swing.

AP: Our of the water.

CR: You Jack, and Gary. US Open.

CR: We won both times we played together.

CR: You and Jack again. It says, “Golf Kings Must be selfish.” Are you selfish?

AP: I don’t think he’s selfish and I don’t think I am.

CR: Whose that?

AP: Those are my buddies. That The Blue Angels.

CR: Tell me about flying for you. It’s a second passion.

AP: You know I started by being scared. When I was an amateur I played a couple tournaments and I had to fly, and got into weather and stuff, and it scared me, and I decided that would not work, I had to learn to fly, I had to find out about airplanes and aeronautical engineering and what it was all about.

CR: You stopped flying now?

AP: Just. I still have my license. I have to do some return training. If I wanted to fly again I’d have to go back and get recertified.

CR: Did you fly all those famous jets.

AP: I will show them to you when we finish this tour.

CR: Yes, sir. So this is your office. Pictures of family.

AP: Everything.

CR: This is your dad, Deke, his given name was Deacon?

AP: Milfred Jermone. Now you know why he’s called Deacon.

CR: There’s the guy.

AP: He was a great guy, a strong dude, not a real big guy, but very strong.

CR: By the time after the amateur, did he fully appreciate it?

AP: It was great, he was great.

AP: This was my first tournament win - the Canadian Open

CR: That was what year?

AP: 1955.

CR: That was three years before you started killing it.

AP: Now, as you know, I’m approaching 82 and I’ve never shot four rounds in an official tournament lower than that.

CR: 64 67 64 70 – pretty good.

CR: Do you think if you were playing today back with the same skills you had when you won all your major tournaments, when you won all your grand slams, if you were playing today, would you be number one?

AP: (Laugh) I can’t answer that.

CR: But you have the will to win, clubs are different, you’d be stronger. You’d like to give it a shot wouldn’t you?

AP: You’re damn right. I’d like to give it a go.

CR: Well, Wake Forest (degree). I’ve spoken twice at commencement there – that’s a picture of the school at Winston Salem

AP: Pebble Beach (photo), which I’m a partner in.

AP: That’s the hole I drove at Cherry Hills.

CR: When you actually reached that green you were so infused with what …said to you.

AP: At the termination the thing we talked about…..all over….

CR: Everybody believed that if you had wanted to be you could have been governor of Pennsylvania. Did you think about it?

AP: I had no choice, you know people pushed for me, Tom Ridge was a good friend,

CR: The future Governor of Pennsylvania.

AP: So that was something that, – I’m not a politician.

CR: But you are a citizen, you love America.

AP: I love America. I wanted to play golf.

CR: You don’t have to be a politician to make a contribution to the country.

AP: Here’s degrees I got from speaking at schools around the country. Here’s something I got recently – My Degree from St. Andrews. Well come on, we’ll show you some more.

CR: Tell me what I’m going to see here, as this is legendary, where you come to hide,

AP: I love it. I come in here and work on golf clubs. Some say I destroy more than I build.

CR: What you do here is make the club better for your sing.

AP: I always said that if I have the perfect club then I should play the perfect game.

CR: You grind and you build.…

AP: I can do anything. I put them together, I take them apart. People say that I’m very good at taking them apart.

CR: What kind of clubs do you play with today?

AP: Calloway.

CR: Of course.

CR: Let’s talk for a moment about President Eisenhower. Your 37 birthday he shows up at your front door on your house to pay tribute to you on your birthday. He comes with his wife to This is the President you had the deepest relationship with?

AP: Yes. I played with him on the day after I won the Masters at his request. We became everlasting friends. I was with him the day before he died at Walter Reed, which is familiar because they are closing Walter Reed. We just became very good friends, we played golf, we played heart exhibitions. Then his doctor said he should not play golf anymore. He’d spend his winters at Palm Springs, and he’d call me and say what are you doing? I’m going to play golf I think. And he’d say if you get the time come by the house and we’ll have a beer. And I wouldn’t play golf, I’d go over and sit with him and talk about golf, and business, the military, the whole thing, the country.

CR: His passion for golf helped make the game popular.

AP: You can say that in spades.

CR: Then there was JFK, who also sought you out.

AP: Yes, unfortunately.

CR: He was a guy who loved winners.

AP: And he was a good golfer.

CR: When you saw his swing, they said he was a good golfer and had a more fluid swing than any other president, and you could make it better.

AP: It never happened.

CR: Why didn’t it happen?

AP: Actually I was on my way to Palm Springs to play with him.

CR: This was 1963.

AP: 1963. We were going to play some golf and the White House called me and said, Arnie, forget it. I said why, I want to do it. They said he hurt his back and was going to take some time off and not play for awhile, and just couldn’t do it, and that was it.

CR: Here’s a plaque. “No house calls.”

CR: You always had a good relationship with the press.

AP: I enjoy the press. I understand their business. Doc has helped me with that, but the press were guys that I could get with. I could talk to them.

CR: Part of what made Arney’s Army famous because there was a sense of you being this brawny guy who liked to win, but it was like you were with them.

AP: Buddies.

CR: They were buddies.

AP: We had a beer together.

CR: Presidential Medal of Freedom

AP: It is the highest award that the United States can give to a civilian.

AP: This is the one (medal) from Portugal. The highest civilian award. I built a golf course there and became friends with the president.

AP: This is the Hitchcock belt – 1960 I won it for professional athlete of the year.

CR: You also won as professional athlete of the decade.

AP: Yes sir, yes sir. That’s what this relates to.

CR: This is President Bush giving you the Medal of Freedom.

CR: The National Amateur medal. That is a great honor, isn’t it.

AP: Yes it is.

CR: What’s this?

AP: That is the National Amateur.

CR: So that’s 1954. That stands pretty high up in importance…

AP: That’s Major.

AP: Charlie, this is my Presidential Corner. Things that happened with various Presidents I was associated with.

CR: Here’ s Nixon. Did Nixon play golf?

AP: Yes he did.

CR: Gerald Ford. Great athlete

AP:. Played football.

AP: This is a conference Nixon called of all his friends to talk about how to negotiate the war. Kissinger, the whole crowd.

CR: To see how to negotiate the end the Vietnam War.

AP: Yes.

CR: Wow.

CR: George Bush 41 –

AP: A great guy.

CR: Played fast golf.

AP: Very.

CR: Here’s Ronald Reagan.

AP: These are White House dinners.

CR: Whose the lady in white?

AP: Oh, she happens to be the Queen.

CR: Here we go with trophies.

AP: Ryder Cup, Open Championship…..

CR: The Ryder Cup.

AP: It’s a great international competition.

CR: There’s more enthusiasm for it.

AP: We hope so. I’ve always been a big thinker that the more international competition that we create through sports the better relationships we’ll have with countries.

CR: More common ground and the better off we’ll be.

AP: Exactly, that’s the name of the game.

CR: Bill Clinton.

AP: Loved golf.

CR: How’s his golf?

AP: The balls didn’t have a zip code on it.

CR: Here’s a letter from President Eisenhower.

AP: We played golf one day, and you can see the date on it. This is a letter from Eisenhower, he and I were playing golf one day, you can see the date – it’s 1965 – DDE Gettysburg. August 15, 1955. “Dear Arnie, enclosed is payment for my bet ($10) and never was there one more reluctantly paid. Also attached is a picture cut from the Philadelphia, Inquirer. It indicates dejection. Please remember that a couple of accidents will not be important a year from now. You will win a lot more tournaments and forget all the wounds caused by bridges, rocks and complaints about a tree, love to Winnie, all the best, DD.”

CR: The bet was?

AP: He bet me that I’d win the PGA championship that year, and I didn’t.

CR: A hell of a life.

PART II – CONVERSATION

CR: It’s an honor to be here.

AP: That you, it’s an honor to have you here Charlie.

CR: You once said this about golf:

“It’s deceptively simple, endlessly complicated. A child can play it well, and a grown man can never master it. Any single round of it is full of unexpected triumphs and perfect shots that end in disaster. It is almost a science, yet it is a puzzle without an answer. It is gratifying and tantalizing, precise and unpredictable. It requires complete concentration and total relaxation. It satisfies the soul and frustrates the intellect. It is at the same time, rewarding and maddening. And it is without doubt the greatest game mankind has ever invented.”

CR: That is well said, sir.

AP: Well thank you very much, that was a long time ago.

CR: When did you fall in love with this game?

AP: Well Charlie, I’ve got to start at the beginning I guess and it was right here, about 200 yards from where we are sitting. My father started on this golf course at Latrobe when he was sixteen years old. He was digging ditches when they were building the golf course.

CR: You were raised right here?

AP: I was raised here, I was playing cowboys and Indians in the trees, and then I started hitting the golf club with clubs he sawed off for me, and I began playing right here with my father.

CR: Did he tell you to hit it hard and worry about accuracy later?

AP: He did, he said, “Hit it hard, boy, then go and get it and hit it again.”

CR: It served you well.

AP: It did. He was a tough guy, Charlie. I was the first son and first child. When my sister came along, well, she was two years younger, and I had to go to the golf course because my mother couldn’t handle all the action going on. So I came with him to the golf course since I was a year and a half old and I spent the day with him here, and it worked in naturally. And it was fun for me being with my father, and doing things that a kid did it was great.

CR: What part of your game today is something that you can look back and say it was because of Deak?

AP: Everything, my manners, I wanted to emulate him. I wanted to be as tough as he was. I wanted to do the things that he did. I watched him. We had some guys who worked on the golf course. When I was born in 1929, as you know, that was the depression, so the golf course was manned by my father and two guys, they worked for my dad and they took me with them everywhere they went. And it was fun. And of course, Pat was a guy who had infantile paralysis when he was born, a year after he was born, so his upper body was very strong, he chinned himself with a straight bar and could do either arm ten or fifteen times, and he did it every day, his upper body was very strong. And I did that too.

CR: Most people who have gone on to get the fame and fortune like you, did don’t comeback to their hometown, but you do and you will to the day that you die.

AP: You’re right and I will, I love it.

CR: I think you said, “You’re hometown is not where you are from, it is who you are.” Your father was here, you were here. When did you know you could play the game well?

AP: That’s another thing about my father. He made me very conscious of the fact I wasn’t very good and I had to prove to him that I was good. And that hung with me, and I always wanted to play golf with him and show him. He said Never, Never tell anyone how good you are. Show them!

CR: Every man wants to prove himself and say, dad, did I do okay?

AP: When I won the amateur he came from here to Detroit, to see me play the final round and I just barely won, and beat out Bob Sweeney. I was national amateur champion. I was 24 years old. My father was there, and I couldn’t wait to see him, and my mother. I went up and was waiting for all the accolades, and my mom was teary and happy and my dad looked at me and said, “Well, boy, you did good,” and that was it.

CR: You said after that, that was the greatest triumph in your life.

AP: It was the one that was most important.

CR: Most important, because it got your dad’s approval. Why Wake Forest?

AP: Well, again my father, you’re going to get tired of hearing about my father.

CR: It defines who you are.

AP: Well I worked for dad on the grounds and I was in high school and I said I wanted to go to college, and he said, well, you figure it out. He said I will pay for your college but you’re going to go to St. Vincent. St. Vincent College right here. That’s about as much as I can afford, you work here, right here at home. I said, what if I can get somewhere else? And he said if I can get there, that’s your call.

So I played high school golf, I played amateur golf and I started getting officers. The offers started coming in. I was playing pretty good, won amateur tournaments as a junior, and the whole thing. I was playing in the national juniors in Los Angles, with a buddy of mine who was from Washington DC. His name was Marvin “Bud” Worsham, and his brother was Lew, the pro at Oakmont who won the Open in ’47.

That was the year we graduated. We were out there playing in the juniors. And he said, Ernie, where you going to go to college? And I said I was looking at a couple, I had some officers, I had feelers from Penn State and Pitt, and Miami, and I like the Miami because I could play golf all winter.

He said, “Hey, if I get you a scholarship will you go with me?”

And I said, where?

And he said Wake Forest.

I said, where’s that?

He said it’s in North Carolina.

And I said, that’s great, you can play golf all year.

He said if I contact them and they give you a scholarship, will you go?

I said, “You bet.”

The athletic director was a guy named Jim Weaver. Did you ever hear that name? You should, as he’s the guy who founded the Atlantic Coast Conference.

CR: Exactly. And I grew up as you know some 30 miles from Wake Forest.

You should have because he founded the Atlantic Coast Conference.

AP: Well Jim Weaver, I had no idea who it was. I didn’t even know where Wake Forest was. I came home from that tournament, played another one and then got on a bus and went on a bus to Wake Forest. I’ll never Jim Weaver became one of the best friends I ever had. He was athletic director, golf coach, he did the whole thing. And that’s how I ended up at Wake Forest.

CR: So you were there, and Bud Worsham was there, and Jim Flick was there too, was he not?

AP: He and I roomed together after the accident. Bud got killed in an automobile accident our senior year and my roommate then became Jim Flick.

CR: Bud’s death had a big impact on you.

AP: Terrible. (Pause, choking up) He was…..(pause)….he was like a brother. We did everything, we played golf against each other, we did everything you could do… and when he got killed, it was for me about as bad as you could get. I finished the semester and I couldn’t stand it, so I decided I had to do something else, and get my mind cleared up, so joined the Coast Guard. And spent three years in the Coast Guard after that.

CR: So you got out of the Coast Guard and you were ready to be a golfer?

AP: Yea. What the Coast Guard did for me in three years was as much as what Wake Forest did for me as a school. It matured me and allowed me grow up. When I went back to Wake Forest for my final year I knew then that things were better. Meaning I knew I could handle myself.

CR: More mature.

AP: Exactly. I enjoyed it. I went back after school, after my senior year I went back to Cleveland to work there for the summer and that’s when things started happening, the amateur and so.

CR: What was it about the charge that so electrified people and made them feel that you connected to them more than anything else?

AP: I’m not sure that I answer that but the thing – I was scared that I was going to lose, and I didn’t want to lose. It wasn’t so much I was going to win, anytime I got close I felt I had to win, and couldn’t lose, I couldn’t let that happen to me. And it worked, it worked for me. A lot of tournaments that I can remember I made a few bad shots and I was afraid I would lose the tournament and it seemed to work, the putts seemed to go in. Just the Desire.

CR: The run – 58-62, you swing?

AP: I had a system, and the system worked. It lasted, it was better later - 62 or 63. I suppose that I have a psychological feeling about things – and if I have something that I need to accomplish and I accomplish it, I let down after that, and that happened to me in golf. But I played better golf from oh, 65-75, from the standpoint of hitting the golf ball, and getting it where I wanted to, and doing what I wanted to better than those years I won all those events.

CR: You didn’t win a major between 65 and 75 – but you were playing better golf?

AP: That’s what I mean.

CR: Take me to the 1960 US Open.

AP: Well, the Open in 1960 I was playing good. Cherry Hills, I had been to Cherry Hills to practice and then I went up there and I practiced, and for 64 holes I hit the ball on the green and two putted, and hit the green and two putted, and if I missed the green I got a bogie.

AP: And I’ll never forget. You heard the story? About Bob Drum?

CR: Yes.

AP: My friend from Pittsburgh. A Friend of Bob Gibson. I was in the locker room and getting ready to play the second round. I ran into Drum and was munching on a hamburger. I looked at Bob, and we always kidded with each other. I said you know, I was so upset, I was playing good, and nothing is happening. And I said Bob, what do you think, and this was real serious, and I said, what do you think if I could hit a 65 this afternoon. And he looked at me and totally insulted me and said “you can’t do anything.” I didn’t finish the hamburger and went out and hit a few drives and then they called me.

CR: And you kept the driver in your hands.

AP: Now I will tell you something you might known or might not know, but that driver was a Hogan driver. I was with Wilson sporting goods and we were talking, and Ben gave me two drivers and that was one of them. Of course I doctored them. And I went to the tee and took the driver and I drove it on the green.

CR: On the green, a par four 3oo some yards,

AP: 336 yards. And two putted for a birdie. Almost three putted I was so excited. That got me going.

I was walking down the eighth hole and I knew things were happening, and I knew people were talking and the crowd was getting bigger, and who was coming down the middle of the fairway? Bob Drum.

I said, “what the hell are you doing here?”

And he said “You’re playing pretty good.” I wouldn’t even talk to him. I ignored him and walked past him, and what did I do? I bogied the hole. I shot out of a sand trap and missed the put. But then shot a 30 on the nine. And that’s what I needed.

CR: And won the US Open.

AP: Won by two.

CR: Do you remember the great shots or the bad ones, where you were doing good and then boggied the final hole?

AP: I remember ones I lost. I remember the ones I won, but I remember the ones I lost, something that I will never forget. Did it ruin me or hurt my career? It taught me about life, how to take the bad with the good. And yes they hurt, they really hurt, but when I reflect on it now, and I look back, it taught me something – it taught me how to live, how to be a better guy, not let defeat be the end of my life. And I am thankful for that, and I would never felt good if I hadn’t experienced losing, because losing is part of your life. And it something that if I could teach people to understand that I think it could help them a lot.

CR: When you think about the army that followed you, did that help? Did it give you
something nobody else had on the course.

AP: Of course. The fans, I loved them. My mother would be in the gallery, just to give you an example. I would look right at my mother and not remember.

CR: When did you first see and play with Jack Nicholas.

AP: Well, I’m considerably older than Jack.

CR: Ten years maybe?

AP: Eleven. First time I met Jack I had heard about his golf and prowess – I was playing in the Ohio amateur I think, and this was even before I turned pro, and then Cal Festerwald had an exhibition out in Ohio and asked me to come and play with Jack and Howard Sanderson, and I went, and met Jack for the first time. We hit it off immediately, and we became friends. But we competed, and Charlie, that was about so many years ago I don’t even remember now, but we have played against each other and we are still friends, and he’s one of the best friends that I have. He’s a guy,- we don’t spend a lot of time together, but if I felt like I needed something and he was the guy I needed to talk to I would go see him.

CR: They say that the rivalry is part of the magic of what made modern golf - you, Jack Nicholas and television made modern golf.

AP: I don’t know. I hope so. I hope that it helped. I think about television, I think about Ike, I think about Jack, I think about Hogan, and how that influenced me a little bit, and the people that had an affect on my life. And certainly the relationship with Jack was a good one, but it was competitive. And it still is today.

CR: How is it competitive today?

AP: We do business.

CR: Oh, yea. He builds courses, you build courses.

AP: We build golf courses. We don’t disagree a great deal. When it comes to something good, we agree. If we have something to do as a team, we do it.

CR: Did the competition make you better?

AP: I think so. I know it helped me, having Jack playing the way he did.

CR: You had the competition. The challenge made you better.

AP: Exactly. And the fact that he was so determined. He had a personality that was good for what he did. He shut everything off and could concentrate. Of all the time I’ve known him, all our lives for the most part, I never seen him waver on the golf course. The only time that ever happened that I recall, we tried to beat each other. Sometimes when we started trying to beat each other, and it happened this way, there were occasions that when we were playing somebody else would come along and beat both of us.

CR: 18 majors. Does, his record make him the best golfer of all time?

AP: Until somebody shows me a better game, it makes him the best.

CR: Do you believe Tiger will break his record?

AP: No. But I shouldn’t say that. I think Tiger is as close to it as anyone has ever been.

CR: Jack has 18, Tiger has 14 you have 7. In between there’s three or four others.

AP Yea, and Tiger still has a shot at it, but…

CR: You’ve got to believe don’t you, that if somebody has a game as good as he has, you can recapture it?

AP: No.

CR: Why not?

AP: I’m not sure about that. You know, once you, once you vary, then you lose that – thing that you were talking about earlier. What is it? Sometimes it’s hard to put in place. What is it? I’m not sure I know. I’m not sure Jack knows. I know what he did, and I know how good he was. But to have him describe to you or to anyone, what was that thing that you grab? I know that his concentration was so good, that he could play, and play the way it was, but I’ve seen it wander, even with Nicholas, as good as he was. And now when you have a disturbance in your life that’s major, can you get it back? Can you get that thing that you can’t put your finger on, and get hold of it and choke it and keep it. Boy that’s a tough deal. That’s something you see it in every sport –I’ve seen it golf, in baseball players, football players. I seen them so good, and then all of a sudden something happens. It could be a psychological thing, like you say, well, “I’ve done it,” and then that’s it. Then you say, “I want to do it again,” but it isn’t there, you can’t find it, you can’t grasp it. You can’t hold on to it.

CR: Some call that an X factor.

AP: Exactly.

CR: You don’t know what it is. You can’t define it, but you know when it’s there.
AP: Yep.

CR: You had it. Jack had it.

AP: A lot of people. Hogan. Nelson.

CR: Byron Nelson had it.

AP: Yes.

CR: Sam Snead?

AP: Sam Snead was probably a little further from what we are talking about, and had an ability that was more natural than anybody that I knew in golf. Snead was as close to a natural player as anything that ever happened. But you know, now here’s a guy like you say I never won the PGA, well Snead never won the Open. My goodness, if anybody, if you think about it, anybody that should have won the Open was Snead, but didn’t. And why? That X factor.

CR: But you kept that, that thing about winning in you to this very day. You have it, feel it. In business.

AP: It’s a drive, it’s a thing that you feel like when I go to bed at night I go to sleep.

CR: I never met a winner who had a work ethic. Not somebody who says I have so much talent that naturally I won.

You work at it.

AP: That’s it. I talk to golfers, I talk to my grand kids about their game, and tell them to develop a system, Now, when they’re young. And if they develop that system, it will be the crutch they need to be good. To know that system and make it work for you, know what it is and make it work.

CR: Tell me what a system is?

AR: It could be anything. It could be so many things. It all has to do with doing it day in and day out. When you get into competition and get under pressure, and get over that ball and are looking at it, and know you have to hit it, it is having that system to depend on to get that ball to where you want it to be.

CR: You said you didn’t have the perfect swing but was your swing, something you could depend on.

CR: It was your system. DNA.

AP: It was just fun. As my father said, “Hit it, go get it and hit it again.”Or when there’s two trees there in front of you and there’s an opening to the pin between them, you go through them. I had to.

CR: Sometimes you lose some tournaments you should win and you win some you should lose.

AP: That is very true. I’d like to think I won more than I lost.

CR: Your most painful loss?

AP: Gee, I can think of a lot of them, but I suppose San Francisco, the Open, with the lead that I had.

CR: How big was the lead?

AP: Seven shots, going into the back nine, nine holes to play.

CR: You were ahead by seven strokes ahead with nine holes to play?

AP: Yep.

CR: How tough is it about not having won the PGA?

AP: Well, I make excuses for that. I finished second a number of times. And I played good a couple of times and felt I should have won the PGA. And it hurts, the fact that I didn’t win, and I suppose there is some x factor that says why you didn’t win. My excuses are that I have won the Australian, I won the British, all PGA championships, but I haven’t won the PGA championship.

CR: ….Because of the style and drama you brought to the game, and you brought new fans to the game, and that’s your legacy….

AP: I hope I’ve done some of the things that you say I’ve done. The game is so fantastic, and people who get into it love it so much...I’d be pleased with that. There’s no game like it. You go out there and tee it up on the first tee, and it’s you, the golf ball and the golf course. And there you go. And if you can handle it, go at it, and do it good. But what other game - there’s always someone else in the other games, a guy hitting the ball to you, or you throwing the ball somewhere, something else, there’s other people involved in it, but in golf you are the person that’s doing it.

CR: You’re playing yourself and the course.

AP: That’s it. And it can’t change. That’s the way it is.

CR: Gary Player and others have said all of us should all give you a percentage of our earnings because without you there would be no television contracts and without you it wouldn’t be as good for anyone.

AP: The truth is that it is such a great game and for me to be a part of it. Like the
Golf Association, and when I played right here in the Western Pennsylvania Golf Association, and the USGA, what those people - whether you like them or dislike them, what they have done is so great, play the game, the history of the game. Those things are so important to me. People. You talk about the galleries, the people that have inspired me to do what I’ve done and the pleasures of my life – my wife Winnie, my kids, my wife now, what they have helped me do what I wanted to do is so important, and I am so grateful for that, and I could thank people who have helped me, and the fact that I have had a big success.

Mark McCormick – we haven’t talked about him too much, but he was great for me. We had differences. But he was good for me because he taught me about business and the world. Doc Gibbons. Te people I am associated with in my life and business, what they did for me mentally is something that I could never thank them enough.

CR: Thank you.

AP: I tell you what, I don’t play golf much anymore, but you find the time, come here and we’ll try Latrobe Country Club.

Thank You.

[Any corrections to this transcript should be sent to Billkelly3@gmail.com]

"Are you ready for some golf?" - foursome w/ Hitler & Netanyahu

2011-10-09T23:35:00.001-07:00

President Obama plays golf with Speaker of the House Boehner

When Hank Williams, Jr. was dropped from ESPN from opening Monday Night Football by yelling the lead-in to the game, "are you ready for some football?" he called attention to the golf games between President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner.

Appearing on Fox News' Fox & Friends, Williams said this summer's golf summit between Obama and Boehner was "one of the biggest political mistakes ever."

Then Williams went on to make one of the biggest personal mistakes in his career by saying, "It would be like Hitler playing golf with (Israeli leader) Benjamin Netanyhu."

Asked to explain, Williams elaborated by saying Obama and Vice President Joe Biden "are the enemy."

Williams later issued a statement saying that his comment about Obama and Boehner playing golf this summer was "simply trying to show how stupid it seemed to me -- how ludicrous that pairing was." Williams says Boehner and Obama "are polar opposites and it made no sense. They don't see eye-to-eye and never will."

Williams said he is thinking about running as a Republican in 2012 for the U.S. Senate seat from Tennessee.

Now Whoopie Goldberg has come to his defense, which is like Cynthia McKinney sticking by Gadhafi. As suggested, maybe Hank should run for president with Whoopie on the ticket as Veep?

Meanwhile, he's written a song dedicated to FOX News and ESPN, which should be released this week.

Probably, the best thing Hank Williams, Jr. could do for himself at this point is take up golf and go play a round with Willie.

- BillKelly3@gmail.com

Hank Williams Jr. wrote a new song about Fox News and ESPN
By Chris Chase

http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/blog/shutdown_corner/post/Hank-Williams-Jr-wrote-a-new-song-about-Fox-New?urn=nfl-wp9130

Are you ready for some vengeance, vapid lyricism and strained rhyming patterns?

Hank Williams Jr. is releasing a new song entitled "I'll Keep My ...," in which he calls out ESPN and Fox News after his remarks about President Barack Obama and Adolf Hitler on "Fox and Friends" led to his dismissal from the "Monday Night Football" theme song after 23 years.

The country music singer wrote the song on Friday and is scheduled to release it late Monday or early Tuesday. In its third verse, he takes issue with how Fox took his words out of context: "So Fox 'n Friends wanna put me down/Ask for my opinion/Twist it all around."

If it didn't mean having to listen to Hank Williams Jr. speak about anything other than music or Alabama football, I'd be interested to hear how he thinks Fox twisted his opinion. After all, there are only so many ways to take the quote: "It'd be like Hitler playing golf with Netanyahu."
Williams calls the U.S. the "United Socialist States of America" earlier in the song. He finishes the third verse with a subtlety you'd expect from the man who wrote "Why Can't We All Just Get a Long Neck?" The song ends with the suggestive jab, "Well two can play that gotcha game you'll see."

During an appearance on "The View" last week, Williams found a measure of support from Whoopi Goldberg. This led to him suggesting a possible Whoopi/Hank presidential ticket in the future. Let's pray that this theoretical campaign would never take them to the golf course. That would be like ... never mind.

Before this happened,
http://conservativebyte.com/2011/06/golf-with-bam-a-flub-for-boehner/
Conservative Byte wrote:

I think one of the problems with Boehner playing — and I understand the lure. Boehner loves to play golf. I myself have played golf with Boehner. Boehner is a six handicap, six or seven. He’s a good golfer. I’m sure he would never admit this, but I’m sure that Boehner in part relished the opportunity to go out there and just shellac Obama on the golf course. But aside from that: The President calls you and says, “Let’s go play golf,” and you’re the Speaker of the House, it’s tough to say no because then the media is gonna rake you over the coals.

“Refusing to be civil! Refusing to get together with the president and solve the nation’s problems,” as though that’s gonna happen on the golf course. But I think it’s just a matter of respect, too. The President calls you to go play golf, you do it. Two problems: One is now you can’t criticize Obama for playing golf, ’cause Boehner did it, too. So if we start making jokes — this 13 weekends in a row he’s played golf! — the retort is, “Well, so did Boehner.” But the thing to me is, we’ve got people losing their jobs left and right. People’s homes are underwater. We have dire economic circumstances. We have wars in four different places around the globe.

If these guys are going to get together, do it in a place and under the auspices of actually working on these problems, rather than photo-ops playing golf, trying to show that everybody can get along — which only helps Obama. Showing that everybody can get along, that’s another premise they put forth that we somehow think we have to respond to, that people “not getting along” is our fault and our problem because of the way we are. This is the guy, Obama, who refused to meet with Boehner or any other Republican leader for the first year, maybe even longer. If you’re gonna get together, get together and read the Riot Act to this guy over what his policies are doing to the country. Now, maybe that happened on the golf course; I don’t know.

Well, I know. The golf course is really not the place for that would happen, but you don’t know. I have no idea. What I… (interruption) It wouldn’t happen. Obama is not gonna invite me to play golf. It’s already been floated. Outside my auspices, against my wishes the second time. Somebody already tried to make it happen. (interruption) Yeah, and it’s that… (sigh) Gosh. (interruption) No. I’m not concerned about that, but if I… (interruption) No. No. No further. I’m not gonna lock my… (interruption) No. I don’t know what I would… (interruption) I’m not gonna respond to a hypothetical with another hypothetical answer. Snerdley’s badgering me here on the IFB. I know what you want. You want me to go say, “Go pound sand, Mr. Obama! I wouldn’t dare waste my time.”

That’s what you want. (chuckling) Everybody wants me to go do their dirty work

US Loses Walker Cup at Aberdeen

2011-09-22T10:02:00.000-07:00

Did anyone notice that the Walker Cup was played for and lost to the UK and Ireland? It attracted little media attention in the USA, but should.

The amateur version of the Ryder Cup national team competition, the Walker and Ryder Cups grew out of the early animosity between American and British and Scottish golfers in the early years of international competition.

When Walter Travis, an American citizen born in Australia, who had won the US Amateur at the Atlantic City Country Club, won the British Amateur, he refused to return to defend his title because of what he considered shabby treatment. John McDermott, the first native born American to win the US Open(1911-12) and ACCC professional didn't fare much better.

McDermott helped inflame the nationalist tone of the competition in 1913 when he declared, after soundly defeating Harry Vardon, Ted Ray and Wilfred Reid at Shawnee that the foreigners wouldn't take the US Open trophy home with them, and they didn't, thanks to amateur caddy Francis Ouimet at Brookline.

But it took Walter Hagen to set the record straight when he refused to compete in tournaments at clubs that refused to allow golf professionals in the clubhouse, thus liberating the pros from their pro shop station.

Clarance Hackney, another Atlantic City Country Club professional who succeeded McDermott in 1914 and remained pro until he died in 1940, was one of the Americans to compete with Hagen in the first pre-Ryder Cup team events that were held between the Americans and the UK.

While Philadelphia department store owner John Wannamaker put the Ryder Cup into formal competition, it was George Herbert Walker - grandfather of the first President Bush who the Walker Cup is named after, for his leadership of the US Golf Association.

The Walker Cup was played for once in South Jersey, at Pine Valley, and this year's event was held at Aberdeen, Scotland, where James "Jolly Jim" Fraser lived before immigrating to America to be a golf professional.

Aberdeen has a long history of golf, and the town Fraser was from is called Fraserburg, where there is a golf club that is the fifth oldest club in Scotland and the seventh oldest in the world.

NEWS REPORTS OF THIS YEAR'S EVENT:

Britain and Ireland won the Walker Cup for the first time since 2003, holding off the U.S. in the afternoon singles for a 14-12 victory on Sunday at Aberdeen, Scotland.

Britain and Ireland took an insurmountable lead when 17-year-old Welshman Rhys Pugh beat U.S. Amateur champion Kelly Kraft, 2 and 1, and Steven Brown halved with Blayne Barber. Paul Cutler than halved with American Patrick Cantlay in the final match of the biennial event between leading amateur players.

The U.S. leads the series, 34-8-1.

Walker Cup is tough act to follow

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/iaincarter/2011/09/great_britain_and_irelands_stu.html

A stunning Walker Cup marked the start of a series of team matchplay tournaments that will add spice to the golfing calendar following the culmination of the major season.

The Seve Trophy pits the pros of Great Britain and Ireland against Continental Europe this week. Then it is the turn of Europe's professional women to try to overcome the United States in the Solheim Cup.

Pitching an individual sport like golf into a team environment has magical consequences as numerous Ryder Cups have proven and as the Walker Cup dramatically illustrated again atRoyal Aberdeen. GB&I's brilliant 14-12 success gave them victory in the competition for the first time in eight years.

How Alison Nicholas will want to emulate Nigel Edwards as she tries to inspire her European team to Solheim Cup success. It would be a victory that would be just as unexpected as the one celebrated by Edwards and co in Scotland.

If Nicholas is successful, it would also mean that the Ryder Cup, Walker Cup and Solheim Cup all reside on this side of the Atlantic.

Edwards led his young team magnificently against an American side that boasted supposedly the world's best amateur players. The chances of a home win were written off in almost every quarter bar the GB&I team room.

"Did I expect to be sat here winning? Yes, absolutely," Edwards said. "I had had a quiet look at the things people had said and written but I told the boys from the outset that they did not need worry about anyone else.

"All they needed to do was focus on themselves. They are very special and proved that this week. They did a great credit for themselves, their families and their countries."

Edwards led his team with a quiet confidence that gave him an inspiring authority. The Welshman's handling of the foursomes pairings was exemplary, with GB&I losing only one of the eight matches. It was perfect captaincy - and a similar level of leadership can be expected from Paul McGinley when he steers Britain in their defence of the Seve Trophy this week.

This event will not have the same intensity or resonance of the tournaments that sandwich it but it will give us another opportunity to measure McGinley as a potential Ryder Cup captain.

The Irishman was brilliant two years ago and his intelligence and passion for team golf will come to the fore even though the Seve Trophy pales in significance compared with the Ryder Cup, Walker Cup and Solheim Cup.

Much will be made of the absence of big names like Rory McIlroy, Martin Kaymer andSergio Garcia from this week's match but the fact that players skip the Seve Trophy tells you all you need to know about its true significance.

Should the stay-aways have made more effort to play in the year of the death of the man after whom the trophy is named? Perhaps, but it could be argued this match is a rather artificial memorial to Seve Ballesteros.

Yes, he was at the heart of its inception and it is his name on the trophy but he meant much more to the European game than this contest. It does not capture the imagination of the fans in the way his golf did or other team events do and, in all honesty, never will.

There are many other ways the game can honour the late Ballesteros and those not present in Versailles this week should not be regarded as snubbing his memory.

Indeed, many of them honour it by the standard of their play around the golfing world. No one did more than Ballesteros to demonstrate that there should be no ceiling on European players' ambitions.

This is well worth remembering at a time when the continent provides the top three in the world rankings - Luke Donald, Lee Westwood and McIlroy. Of those, only Westwood is competing in the Seve Trophy.

And while on the subject of team golf, it would be remiss not mention the PGA Cup this week. Great Britain and Ireland's club professionals are bidding to beat their American counterparts on US soil for the first time when they play in California.

The Ultimate Foursome - Vardon, Ray, Fraser and Hagen

2011-09-05T09:02:00.000-07:00

In the fall of 1921 Harry Vardon and Ted Ray played an exhibition match against James Fraser and Walter Hagen at Pottstown, Pennsylvania.

Fraser, from Fraserburg, Scotland, was the Seaview Country Club (NJ) professional, whose ten year old son Leo would caddie for him that day. Leo would go on to become the Seaview pro, the owner of the Atlantic City Country Club and an important PGA administrator.

Harry Vardon and Ray Ted, both from the English channel Island of Jersey, were among the first UK professionals to take golf on the road and physically promote the game.

Walter Hagen, the obstinate Yank, would become known as the "great emancipator" for giving the golf professional the status of gentlemen and thus permitted in the club house, from where they were previously regarded as employees. Hagen was the first touring golfer to earn a million dollars.

Vardon, Ray and Hagen won 16 US and British Opens among them.

Ted Ray won the 1912 US Open and 1920 British Open, while Harry Vardon, said to be the greatest ever, won the 1900 US Open and the 1896,1898,1899, 1903, 1911 and 1914 British Opens. Walter Hagen, who would be the first successful touring pro, won the 1914 and 1919 US Opens and 1922, 1924, 1925, 1926 and 1927 British Opens.

James "Jolly Jim" Fraser had played in some early Open tournaments and while primarily a club professional, he was no slough, as Fraser and Hagen won the match with Vardon and Ray, said to be one of only two exhibitions they lost on that tour.

Vardon made three tours of America, playing an exhibition at the Atlantic City Country Club in 1900, and in 1913 was accompanied by Ray and Wilfrid Reid. All three played in the famous Shawnee Tournament and "The Greatest Game" at the U.S. Open at Brookline. Two years later Wilfrid Reid would assume Fraser's job as pro at Seaview when Fraser would be killed in a traffic accident. Reid would also lay out the original Lakeside course at the Olympia Club in San Francisco where the 2012 US Open will played.

The 1921 tournament at Pottstown was played over a course that was part of Hill School, but a few years before this match was played the Brookside Golf Club was formed by the citiens of Pottstown and today it remains a very respectable club rich, with history.

Old Sandbox at the First Tee - ACCC

2011-09-04T09:20:00.000-07:00

Sand box at the old first tee at the Atlantic City Country Club

Before a black New Jersey dentist invented the wood golf tee, golf balls were placed on small pinches of sand before they were driven with the first shot.

1911-12 US Open Champion John McDermott continued to use pinches of sand even after the golf tee became popular.

The modern tee

An early tee designer who gets a lot of attention today in websites and the popular press is Dr. George Grant, the first black graduate of Harvard's dental school. His version of the tee, patented in 1899, consisted of a vertical rubber tube attached at its base to a carrot-shaped piece of wood. It was not the first-ever golf tee as is often claimed, and in fact did not differ much from the earlier pegs that similarly combined a flexible ball rest and a rigid ground anchor.

Since Grant did not sell or promote his handiwork, it went unnoticed by the golfing public.

George Franklin Grant (September 15, 1846 – August 21, 1910) was the firstAfrican American professor at Harvard. He was also a Boston dentist, and an inventor of a wooden golf tee.

He was born on September 15, 1846 in Oswego, New York to Phillis Pitt and Tudor Elandor Grant.

He attended the Bordentown School for high school.

He entered the Harvard School of Dental Medicine in 1868, and graduated in 1870. He then took a position in the department of Mechanical Dentistry in 1871, making him the Harvard University's first African-American faculty member, where he served for 19 years. Grant is also famous for his invention of the oblate palate, which is a prosthetic device he developed for the treatment of the cleft palate. He was a founding member and later the president of the Harvard Odontological Society and was a member of the Harvard Dental Alumni Association. Grant was elected president of the Alumni Association in 1881. He died on August 21, 1910 at his vacation home in Chester, New Hampshire of liver disease.

George Franklin Grant, 1847-1910". Harvard. Retrieved 2007-05-24. "Dr. George Franklin Grant (1847-1910) of Oswego, New York, received a degree from the Harvard Dental School in 1870 and then joined the faculty as an authority on mechanical dentistry. He was the first African-American faculty member at the university and remembered today for his invention and patenting of the golf tee."

New York Times. Retrieved 2007-06-21. "He was born on September 15, 1846 in the small town of Oswego, New York, and he was one of seven children born to Phillis Pitt and Tudor Elandor Grant."
The Post-Standard. Retrieved 2007-06-21. "George Franklin Grant is the only one of Tudor E. Grant's four children who left much of a historical trail, but it's an intriguing one, notably for an invention used by millions of golfers. Born in 1847 in Oswego to Tudor and Phillis Pitt Grant, he was educated in Oswego but apparently left home at age 15 after an argument with his father over his taste in clothes. He went to work for an Oswego dentist named S.A. Smith, toiling in a laboratory for five years, according to a Boston Public Library document."

Taylor, Erica. "Little-Known Black History Fact: The Bordentown School", BlackAmericaWeb.com, May 13, 2010. Accessed June 6, 2010.

McDaniel, Pete (2000). "Birth of the tee: The story behind the man who gave the ball the perfect setup - George Franklin Grant, inventor". Bnet. Retrieved 2007-05-24. "Grant was born in 1846 in Oswego, N.Y. Unlike many modern-day heroes, his contribution to the game was through ingenuity and resourcefulness rather than playing ability. Grant received a patent for the golf tee in 1899. His was the blueprint for today's wooden and plastic tees. He owned the first patent, but it took almost a century to receive recognition for his invention."

http://www33.brinkster.com/iiiii/inventions/tee.asp

While the turn of the 19th-20th century saw many tee inventions of various forms and materials, none of these novelties grew popular enough to threaten the centuries-old tradition of the sand tee. That situation began to change in the early 1920s, when New Jersey dentist William Lowell patented and sold a tee that would eventually become standard: the familiar one-piece wooden peg with a funnel-shaped head. The "Reddy Tee," as Lowell called it, was easy and cheap to mass produce, but most important to its success was Lowell's aggressive marketing campaign, which included hiring golf great Walter Hagen to show off the tees while touring.

Because of the Reddy Tee's unprecedented acceptance at both the professional and amateur levels, Lowell was for some time assumed to have been the inventor of the golf tee. More recently it has become fashionable, especially during Black History Month, to give George Grant the credit. Few people are aware of the tees preceding both Grant's and Lowell's, and as of this writing, scant reference to them can be found elsewhere on the Web. For a reasonably complete history, find the bookSingular History of the Golf Tee by Irwin R. Valenta (Greensboro, N.C. : I.R. Valenta, c1995).

William Lowell, Sr. (1863 – June 24, 1954) was a dentist, and an inventor of a wooden golf tee.[1]
William Lowell was born in Hoboken, New Jersey and lived in Maplewood, New Jersey and had a son, William Lowell, Jr. (1897-1976).[2] He first made 5,000 tees, that were stained green, but he soon changed to red, to make them more distinctive and named them "Reddy Tees". In 1922 Walter Hagenand Joe Kirkwood used his tees during their exhibitions. The Reddy Tee was patented on May 13, 1925, but in 1922 he signed a deal with the A.G. SpaldingCompany, for 24 dozen. By 1925 he was selling $100,000 worth of tees and they were being made of celluloid. By 1926 copycat versions were on the market, and he spent much of his time and money fighting patent infringement.

He died at Orange Memorial Hospital in East Orange, New Jersey on June 24, 1954 at the age of 91.
U.S. Patent 1,670,627 golf tee filed December 7, 1925
U.S. Patent 1,650,141 golf tee filed August 26, 1925
U.S. Patent 1,569,765 gold putter filed November 13, 1925

Birth: 1863
Hoboken
Hudson County
New Jersey, USA
Death: Jun. 24, 1954

William Lowell, Sr. (1863 – June 24, 1954) was a dentist, and an inventor of a wooden golf tee.

William Lowell was born in Hoboken, New Jersey and lived in Maplewood, New Jersey and had a son, William Lowell, Jr. (1897-1976). He first made 5,000 tees, that were stained green, but he soon changed to red, to make them more distinctive and named them "Reddy Tees". In 1922 Walter Hagen and Joe Kirkwood used his tees during their exhibitions. The Reddy Tee was patented on May 13, 1925, but in 1922 he signed a deal with the A.G. Spalding Company, for 24 dozen. By 1925 he was selling $100,000 worth of tees and they were being made of celluloid. By 1926 copycat versions were on the market, and he spent much of his time and money fighting patent infringement. He died in East Orange, New Jersey in 1954 at the age of 91.

Burial:
Saint Peter's Cemetery
Jersey City
Hudson County
New Jersey, USA
Created by: Richard Arthur Norton (1...
Record added: Nov 23, 2010
Find A Grave Memorial# 62081702

McDaniel, Pete (2000). "Birth of the tee: The story behind the man who gave the ball the perfect setup - George Franklin Grant, inventor". Golf Digest. Retrieved 2007-05-24. "Ten years later, the messy, wet sand tee was still in vogue when Dr. William Lowell, a Maplewood, N.J., dentist, made the late-in-life discovery that golf possessed certain therapeutic advantages. ..."

New York Times. May 14, 1976. Retrieved 2007-05-24. "William Lowell Jr., a former manufacturer of golf tees and an industrial packaging specialist, died Wednesday at Muhlenberg Hospital,Plainfield, New Jersey He was 78 years old and lived in Fanwood, New Jersey"

New York Times. June 25, 1954. Retrieved 2010-11-24. "Dr. William Lowell, designer of the Reddy Golf Tee, which came into universal use in the sport, died yesterday at Orange Memorial Hospital after a short ..."

Don January Recalls origin of PGA Tour in Atlantic City

2011-09-02T05:46:00.000-07:00

Stan Badz/PGA TOUR

Don January laughs during the 2001 Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf.
Jun. 22, 2010 | http://www.pgatour.com/2010/s/06/21/30th-anniversary/index.html

By Vartan Kupelian, PGATOUR.COM Contributor

The memories of that first Senior Tour event have dimmed for Don January.

What hasn't faded during the intervening three decades is how much fun it was, from putting together the building blocks of something that would grow and flourish to making the key swings and putts down the stretch.

The 30th anniversary of the first Senior Tour event in Atlantic City, won by January, is Tuesday (June 22).

"That's a few years ago," said January, who won the first title. "No doubt about it, it has changed."

The Senior Tour was conceived in 1980 by a gang of six. It began with four events and purses totaling $475,000. Today, the circuit for golfers over age 50 has grown to 26 official events offering $51.5 million in official prize money. The average purse is just under $2 million.

Renamed the Champions Tour in 2002, its mission statement is to provide a competitive environment for those who are ready to embark on the next phase of their professional careers. The phrase "competitive environment" is the operative term. That's not how it was in 1980.

"Julie (Boros) put it best," January said. "He said, 'I don't care where we play or how much we play for - just get me out of the house."

January, Boros, Bob Goalby, Sam Snead, Dan Sykes and Gardner Dickinson were the shakers behind the movement.

Goalby vividly remembers elements of the January, 1980, meeting at Jacksonville International Airport that led to the first Senior Tour event. PGA TOUR

Commissioner Deane Beman was there.

The goal was a casual 10-event circuit.

"I don't think Deane thought there was any chance of doing much," Goalby said. "Money spent on senior golf wouldn't make the regular tour guys too happy.

"Julius was a slow-talking guy, easy-going, never in a hurry. He made that great comment. He had a bunch of kids and grandkids at home, he kind of liked the tour, the quiet life. Back home, there were 10 people in the house."

Goalby, Mike Souchak and January played together in the last round at Atlantic City. On the first hole, a par 5, Goalby reached the green in two shots and had a 12-foot eagle putt. He got it halfway to the hole.

"I hadn't played in a while," Goalby said. "It was embarrassing but I made the putt for birdie."

It isn't difficult for Goalby to prioritize the reasons why the Senior Tour succeeded. It was about playing in places that hadn't seen professional golf and embraced the idea and the men they knew from a distance but never before had an opportunity to see in person.

But a bigger reason, in Goalby's opinion, was the effort that was put into it by the golfers.
"Snead was our catalyst," Goalby said. "He played in every tournament the first three, four years, went to every clinic, did everything he could for us. We had three, four parties a week and all the players went to the pro-am draw.

"We had been put out to pasture and we knew the only way to make it work was to help sell it."
And sell they did.

"It took off because we paid the price," said Goalby, who served 16 years on the Senior Tour board. "Snead said it was more fun than anything he had done in his life. It was very exciting and a lot of fun. A lot of us had to quit the regular tour when we were 40, couldn't afford to hang on like you can today when you make $12,000 a week at the bottom.

"It was a chance for us to keep playing and we were hungry, it was a chance to compete. I remember Billy Caspersaying he was happy to show people we were better people the second time around."

Brian Henning came aboard in 1981 as administrator of the Senior Tour.

"My job was to go out and find sponsors to put up $125,000 and that's basically what I did," said Henning, who spent 22 years in the role. "Our goal was to get about 10 events to get the senior players in those days out of the house for a couple of weeks every year and that was basically it.
"Suddenly, everything just went wild."

The wildfire spread word of mouth. The deal was too good to pass up.

"I was able to go into cities and guarantee 50 of the best senior players in America, the world if you like, who would play in the pro-am," Henning said. "Sam Snead, Julius Boros, Bob Goalby, Arnold Palmer. We entertained them at their parties and they had a lot of fun. Word spread. Next thing I was getting calls from all over the country."

In 1983, Henning's title was changed to Vice President/Senior Tour Field Operations and eventually Vice President/Competitions. He retired in 2001.

Goalby has fond recollections of Henning.

"He was very instrumental," Goalby said. "He did a great job for us. He was the front man, did a lot of PR for us. He was very good."

Some components of the Senior Tour that Goalby, January and the others envisioned no doubt were whimsical.

"More or less, it was a reunion for us," said January, whose 22 victories is tied for sixth most all-time with Chi Chi Rodriguez. "We figured there might be a market out there for us, why not take a shot at it.

"We were trying to give back to the sponsor a little better deal than they had been getting and corporate America embraced us. I had a ball. It was a lot of work but we didn't mind doing that.

"None of us realized it would come to what it did. We always thought we had a good product but none of us had any idea it would get this big."

Interview w/Archie Struthers - OC-SP Greate Bay Golf Course

2011-09-02T05:39:00.001-07:00

Ocean City - Somers Point Golf Club

The Old Clubhouse at Ocean City-Somers Point Golf Club - Now Greate Bay

Archie Struthers - April 2001

Just back from Augusta the day the Masters tournament began, Archie Struthers is exuberant, full of energy, like a kid on Christmas. Certainly not your typical golf club president, Archie is excited about golf, the game he loves, and he has some things to be excited about. He’s taking his golf club, Greate Bay in Somers Point, private, while at the same time preparing to open a new and exciting course – Twisted Dune, which has his signature all over it.

Born in Brooklyn, New York, Archie Struthers moved to South Jersey with his family as a child, and began to caddy when he was eleven years old at Woodcrest Golf course in Cherry Hill, where he worked for Tim DeBaufre, now a pro at Greate Bay. After attending Cherry Hill H.S. and the University of Maryland, he went to graduate school, he says, “to kind of prolong my childhood, because I loved coming down the shore so much.”

Before joining a group on the back nine, Archie took me for a ride around to see Twisted Dune and talked casually about what he’s doing at Great Bay and his thoughts on the future of golf at the Jersey Shore.

Kelly: You were a golf pro for awhile.

Struthers: I was a golf pro for two years. I was in graduate school when I decided to turn pro. I thought I could be a good player and I found out I couldn’t, for whatever reasons. I went down to Florida and was playing pretty good. Then I started to take lessons and started playing worse. I retired because I couldn’t hit it straight. But that may have been a blessing in disguise because these guys are so good, they are such great players. I still have the occasional good round. I’ll break 70 once a year. I’ll break 80, and then I’ll go on the other side as well.

Kelly: You worked at Pine Valley for awhile, what was that like?

Struthers: Pine Valley is a unique place because you’re exposed to some of the great minds in golf every day there, on a regular basis. All the members are from all over the country, not all famous guys. Like the guy from Iowa, who’s just a nice guy, whose good to spend three days with and listen to his philosophies on golf. Mostly it’s all about golf, and a little bit about life. So I think it’s a great learning experience there for anyone, especially when you’re caddying there, because you get to interface with people so directly. It’s not like, “Hey, how are you? Good to see you. Goodbye.”

Now sometimes, I feel that I can’t spend much time with the people here at Greate Bay, as I like because I’m running in too many directions. Hopefully that will change, as I get more employees, and people working here, you don’t need me as much, even though I keep trying to do it. I think we have a great opportunity here to have some fun and be comfortable. As much as Atlantic City had all that tradition, it was a really comfortable place. You came in there and find all different things going on, and lots of action, local events and people from all walks of life. I’m not saying we can emulate that, but imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and we don’t want to be an exact replica, and we can’t be. But there’s a lot of things that were good and we have a lot of things here that were good to start, and we’re trying to tie it all together and make it a nice club. And I think going private is a big part of that.

Kelly: How did you get from Woodcrest to Pine Valley to Greate Bay?

When I was 27 I went into the real estate business. I have to thank Gene Gatti for the opportunity here. There’s a man who made a deal based on wanting to do something good, not only for the community, but for me, for me to have a chance to do something I love. It wasn’t about the money for him, although we did have to make a good business deal because he’s smart.

He’s just a great guy. I was down his home in Florida this winter and played golf. He breaks his age four or five times a year, and if he could putt better he’d do it more often. He won’t use a long putter and I think he should, but he’s too much of a purist. He’s a very private guy, comes back here every summer and plays with his regular guys.

Kelly: What’s the philosophy of taking Greate Bay private?

Struthers: I still fell that given our location and our ability to prepare good food, have parties and fun, and we have a good golf course. We have a great core of members, some were here when we took over and a lot of them are expatriates from Atlantic City, and a lot of people now from Ocean City. They never realized that this was right in their backyard, and they just didn’t know about it. I think in the long run we have an opportunity to do something kind of unique here, because of our location as much as anything.

Kelly: Atlantic City gave you an influx of members?

Struthers: At the time we had a tremendous influx of members, but we really weren’t ready to take care of them in the style that a lot of them were accustomed to. Thy had a 100 years of preparation over there in running a private club and people that did it for a long, long time, an we were very good at it. Although we did our best, we just weren’t ready to deal with that situation as well as I would have liked. Because our intentions were always good, we kept a core of wonderful golf members who knew that it wasn’t quite what they waned, but knew there was an effort, and there was potential. And now I think we’re beginning to realize some of that potential, finally.

Kelly: The clubhouse is open to the public and has a liquor license and the Pub & Grill has good food and prices.

Struthers: One thing about having a great facility is we can have some really special events at Greate Bay. We’re going to do Wednesday night barbeque gab and golf sessions. I can bring in four or five guys – golf pros, and we hope to get 50 or 75 members to come out for that, and some will just come out to eat. But those guys can teach and talk and tell stories. We have a lot of things planned. Another night we’re going to have a party – a Midsummer’s Night Dream, out in the parking lot with tents. We’re going to have some big bands come in and do a lot of social things.

You have to come to the Greate Bay Pub & Grill. It’s not a stuffy place. It would be pretty hard for me to be too stuffy. It’s just not my MO. Once in awhile I have to put on a suit and tie and go out with my wife to a fundraiser in Atlantic City or someplace, but my wife is much better at that than I am.

Kelly: How will going private affect other things, like the course?

Struthers: I think it’s obvious we’ll have less play than before. It will never be a place that won’t be active. It won’t be anywhere near the level we’ve seen in the last five years, but we are continually improving the course. Superintendent Steve Lane is the head supervisor here at Greate Bay and he helped build Twisted Dune. He’s from North Jersey originally, from a family of superintendents. His father Charlie has also been helping us this winter, and his brother is a superintendent up at Hackensack. It’s a pretty good golf family. Steve was an assistant at Galloway when they built it, and he had two course he ran in Hawaii. He’s an great worker and a really good guy, but it’s hard to get two words out of him if you don’t know him because he’s very quiet. I think he’s made tremendous improvements in the golf course.

Kelly: You have the new Twisted Dune in Egg Harbor Township opening soon, you’ve had this dream and the vision and now you’re making it a reality, what’s that going to be like?

Struthers: I think Twisted Dune will be operationally simple. It’s going to be pretty much just golf. It’s a links type course, unique. We hope it’s going to be less commercialized, come in and have fun, but not play slow! Because I hate that. But come in and hang around awhile. It will have a small clubhouse, almost like the Greate Bay Pub & Grill, same motif, memorabilia, golf stuff on the walls, and hopefully we’ll get all the famous guys in the area, Stan Dudas, Gene Gatti, Tim Debaufree, Billy Care, and have them hanging out there occasionally and bring in some color and add some character to the place, because that’s important. That’s what I’m thinking.

Kelly: Who will be the pro there?

Struthers: It seems we have a million pros working here. We have Don Archer at Hamilton Trails, while here we have Tim DeBaufre, Tom McCarthy, John Appleget, Mike Carson. Mike will be the pro here at Greate Bay, though they all kind of interchange and work together. We have a tremendous amount of experience and talent on that staff. John Appleget is one of our better players and teachers around. Timmy Debaufre is a pretty legendary figure in golf. Tom McCarthy was at Pine Valley, Boneta Bay, Potesta Conch,…we have the best team of pros in the business. There’s also some new assistant pros, Marc Cerniglia and Chris Foster.

Kelly: So you have a lot going, the nine holes at Hamilton Trails, opening Twisted Dune and taking Greate Bay private?

Struthers: It’s interesting for us, because in a lot of ways we have to promote our business, we have to get over the hump and make sure we get enough members for Greate Bay. There’s a fine line between promoting too much and not promoting enough. If it seems like you’re selling everybody, it’s like, “Gee, how private are they?”

Kelly: How many members are you looking for?

Struthers: I don’t have a number in mind. What’s good now is the way our memberships are breaking down. It’s almost splitting down the middle between full members and weekday members. We have a lot of retired people and locals who either work on the weekends around here or don’t want to play on the weekends because they’re here year ‘round.

So if you would have a club where you have 250 full members and 250 weekend members, I mean 250 full members is a very exclusive, private club. So I think that’s a way we can keep our revenues up and dues prices down., because we can offer that weekday and full member plans. The prices vary from $100 to $3500, which is for full members with all the bells and whistles, lockers and stuff. And with the way golf prices are going up, I mean if you’re a member and use the club a lot, at some point it starts to get fairly reasonable.

Kelly: You’re young and seem to support the idea of young people playing golf.

Struthers: Not being an altruist, because we have a nice business and we do well, but golf course are a good thing for the community. It’s somewhere the kids can come and play. We have more kids now than ever, and they’re great players. We have both Mainland and Ocean City play here now. Ocean City’s been here a long time, and now that Larry Silk works here, he asked if Mainland could play here and we said absolutely. It’s going to be interesting to see, and I don’t want to get into trouble because I live in Ocean City, but Mainland has a awful strong team this year and it will be hard to beat them. But in golf you never know what’s going to happen. That’s a pretty good rivalry – Mainland and Ocean City, and now it’s extending beyond the football field to the golf course, which I think is fun. And I like the support we get from the high schools, hosting their banquets and events. We like to support the kids.

And that’s another point about our club memberships that most people don’t realize. If you’re a member at Greate Bay, your kids play for free as long as they’re a student and until they’re out of college. You can’t put a price tag on that.

You come out at 4 o’clock in the afternoon with your ten, eleven, twelve year old, and play five or six holes, whatever their attention span allows. You walk around with them, and spend some quality time together, and I think that’s something we can’t stress enough of. I think we have more young people play here at Greate Bay than any other club in the area, and it’s growing. The kids play on their own. We have twenty to thirty young guys and girls playing regularly. Usually you seem them lugging their bags and playing late in the afternoon. That’s great for us.

Kelly: What do you think is the future of golf at the Jersey Shore.

Struthers: I would say that in the last couple of years the prices got real high real quick, but there’s more competition, so its not like shooting ducks in a pond like it seemed to be. I still think the amount of people that live in the Delaware Valley certainly love to come to the Jersey Shore. Atlantic City is growing slowly, but it’s still continues to grow. The Airport is trying, Borgata is coming, MGM looks like they’re coming. I mean we have 9-10 golf courses close to Atlantic City, while there’s 75 to 90 in Vegas. I see a tremendous opportunity for those golf courses to really become very good at what they do. I’m going to temper that with the fact that I don’t think the state is going to allow them to build too many more, based on water restrictions, though I think that golf courses are much better for the community than housing projects. So in some ways golf courses should be given a break for creating open space, and I wish they’d give us a little tax break.

I think it’s good for a community to have a golf course. I think it certainly benefits Somers Point and I think Twisted Dune will benefit Egg Habor Township.

[Interview with Archie Struthers, first published in Golfers Tee Times, April-May 2001]

Arnold Palmer at Pine Valley 1954

2011-08-25T03:08:00.000-07:00

Arnie Plays Pine Valley for the first time and earns Winnie's wing with 67-69-68

In 1954 Arnold Palmer took all bets going in and cleaned up. "I was about to be married. So I collected all the bets I could find. I don’t know what I would have done if I had lost – it was far more money than I could afford.”

ARNOLD PALMER:

“Winnie assured me all would be well in time.”

“What was really missing, I quickly realized, was some material sign of my intentions – namely, an engagement ring.”

“Back in Cleveland, my old golf gang from Pine Ridge helped solve that problem. Art Brooks, Bill Wehnes, and Ed Preisler all chipped in a couple grand each to help me purchase a decent ring, and Bill even managed to get a good deal from a local jeweler. My salary didn’t pay me enough to afford even the payments on the ring, and I now had an $8,000 debt on top of everything else.”

“It was about this time that one of them proposed a weekend golf trip to Pine Valley. It would be a way, I realized, to maybe pay off my borrowings – or go even deeper into debt. Pine Valley, the famous George Crump layout that meandered through the scrub and sandy hills in the New Jersey pine barrens, was a place I’d always heard about and dearly wanted to play but had never had an opportunity to. Before I knew it, two foursomes were headed that way. On the drive down, the guys started telling me how ruthless Pine Valley was and how even I probably wouldn’t break 90 on it.”

“‘Ninety?’ I looked at Bill Wehnes incredulously.”

“’That’s right.’”

“Well, one thing led to another and I soon had half dozen wagers going, $20 nassaus with automatic presses and an intriguing side bet with Bill: for every stroke I was 70 or under, he’d pay me $100, and for every stroke I was 80 or over I’d pay him the same.”

“In retrospect it was pretty foolish. I could have really lost my shirt and been so indebted to the gang that I would never get out of Cleveland. But you’re only young and cocky and in love once, I suppose, and I had no doubt I could bring celebrated Pine Valley to heel.”

“Foolish thought number two, or so it appeared from the outset.”

“Day one, hole number one: I pull-hooked a 5-iron approach over the green into the bush, chipped over the green, and was forced to make a thirty-footer for bogey five.”

“Pine Valley certainly had my respect and full attention. I think Bill and the guys must have been mentally spending all of my money, and for a while I thought I was in big trouble.”

“Frankly, I’d never seen anything like the place, the way holes were integrated so beautifully into the rolling scrubby sand landscape. It looked wild and manicured. The greens were immaculate, with slopes so subtle or murderous I could see why so many famous pros had come there only to be reduced to screaming fits of despair. At nine, I made a bogey and shot 36 out, thanks to a flurry of much-needed birdies. Not bad – but still a long way to go.”

“The back nine treated me a little better. I holed a fifteen-footer for birdie on the tough finishing hole to card 67. That was four hundred Ben Franklins in my pocket. I cleaned up on all the nassaus and that night even cleaned up at gin rummy. The next two rounds I went 69 and 68, and by the time the weekend was through I had pocked nearly five grand, almost enough to pay off the ring.”

“It was while we were there in that ultimate golf terrarium that I had time to think about what Winnie and I were really up against. My salesman salary scarcely covered my own expenses, much less those of a married couple in need of a first house and possibly children in the near future…..- and as much as I liked the proposed scenario of a big church wedding in the spring and steaming of to England for the Walker Cup, in my heart I saw only one way for us to make it as man and wife.”

“I would need to turn pro.”

Re: Leo Fraser.

“In a nutshell, when Jack and Gardner’s coup d’etat happened…., at a time when I really did have some clout with PGA members, I saw an opportunity to serve as a bridge of sorts to a better world for everybody. But I chose a role that was far more in keeping with my values and personality.”

“Loe Fraser, a lifelong club professional who had many close friends, including me, on the Tour, had just taken office as President of the PGA. Leo was far more open-minded to the idea of a compromise and accommodation, and as much as anything else, his more flexible attitude stalled the alternative APG tour before it really got rolling. I remember going to see Leo at Atlantic City in late 1968 for a lengthy meeting, during which we discussed an idea that had been steadily growing in popularity. I was a leading proponent of a proposal to create a new players organization, a separate entity formally called the PGA Tour that would operate autonomously with a board composed of four players elected by the Tour, three businessmen, and the top three PGA of America officials.”

“Months of sometimes lively debate ensued, but Leo’s essential fairness, good humor, patience, and determination to serve the best interests of the professional game eventually won the day. The rebels abandoned their cause, and the crowing touch came when Joe Dey, the longtime executive director of the United States Golf Association and a man of impeccable credentials, was named first commissioner of the new Tournament Players Division of the PGA – which would soon evolve into the PGA Tour.”

“Joe’s presence gave the fledgling tour organization the instant credibility it needed. But more important, the birth of the new organization devoted expressly to fulfilling the needs and desires of professional tournament golf brought years of bitter feelings and acrimony to an end. We could finally get back to playing the game we all loved to play – instead of bickering about it. And, despite all the bickering, no one could ever do anything to completely diminish my sheer enjoyment at playing this marvelous game. I’d do it even if there was no money involved, and a lot of players share that view, as participation in the Ryder Cup, the President’s Cup, and, to a lesser extent, the World Cup suggests.”

Carroll Rosenbloom

2011-08-14T04:22:00.000-07:00

Carroll Rosenbloom was a rich Margate guy who owned the Baltimore Colts football team. A friend of Leo Fraser, Rosenbloom lent Fraser some of the money he needed to buy the Atlantic City Country Club in 1944 when he returned from the war in Europe. Rosenbloom was also the then anonymous club member who placed a heavy side bet on Babe Zarahus during the 1948 U.S. Women's Open.

In 1960 Rosenbloom was partners with gambling golfer Mike McLaney in the purchase of the Hotel Nacional casino in Havana from Meyer Lansky, another Jersey guy. Lansky cashed in his chips and sold his interests to McLaney and Rosenbloom a few months before Castro came to power and closed the casinos, as well as the golf courses.

In 1964, when Atlantic City was the host for the Democratic National Convention, President Johnson was officially lodged at one of the Atlantic City Boardwalk hotels, but unofficially he stayed at Rosenbloom's house downbeach on the Margate-Ventnor border.

While Rosenbloom was responsible for moving the Colts to Indiana, and died a mysterious death in Florida, he is best remembered for his gambling, especially the bets he made on the Colts in the Superbowl - or was it just called the World Championship at the time?

In any case, according to legend, Rosenbloom had the Colts and four points, so when they were driving towards the goal line near the end of the game, instead of going for the sure three point chip shot field goal, Rosenbloom himself called the plays in to make sure they scored a touchdown so he could win his bets. Or so the story goes. He're one version of the story, as said to be related by Al Besselink.

Besselink is himself an interesting character, originally from Merchantville in South Jersey, near where I too grew up in nearby East Camden. Merchantville is a small town with tree lined streets and an old and historic 9 hold golf club where Johnny McDermott was the pro for a little while in 1910 before being hired away by the more prestigious Atlantic City Country Club and then winning the 1911 and 1912 US Opens. Besselink however, is probably Merchanville's most famous golfer, and here he relates the story of the bet Rossenbloom and McLaney put down on the football game.

The $3-million bet on the 1958 NFL Championship ...
Posted by T.S.

I've gotta tell you, I've had more fun working on a two-part story about the 1962-64 Auravision Records (in the April 17 and May 15 issues of SCD) than I've had in quite some time, all because of the principal character in the drama, Mike McLaney.

It's a massive understatement to say that McLaney was a colorful gambler and casino operator with a résumé that could have been crafted by Damon Runyon, including a link to mobster Meyer Lansky and a history of trying to overthrow or even assassinate a certain pesky communist dictator in Cuba, and you have some of the ingredients of the story. In doing research for the piece, McLaney's name pops up alongside that of President Kennedy, his brother Bobby and his father, Joseph P., Mickey Mantle, Marty Glickman, Avery Brundage, Jim Thorpe and a cast of congressional investigators and subcommittees, just to name a few.

The larger-than-life quality of McLaney’s persona extended to yet another legendary sports figure, former PGA Tour player Al Besselink, who befriended a Who’s Who list of the famous and infamous through the rough-and-tumble early days of the postwar PGA Tour.

“He was my best friend,” the 86-year-old Besselink said in a phone interview. Like his friend, Besselink was inextricably linked to gambling at a time when the glossy veneer of modern times hadn’t been completely applied to the professional golf arena as yet.

“Mike was a flamboyant gentleman and a fabulous human being,” recalled Besselink. He even remembered the Auravision Records that his friend produced, though in keeping with the murky history of the odd collectibles, the details even for Besselink are a bit sketchy.

“Somebody came to Mike with the idea and he put up the money for (printing the Auravision Records),” said Besselink. He didn’t know much more about McLaney’s forway into our zany world of sports collectibles, but he did have a good deal to add about the gambler’s most infamous deed: the $3 million plunked down on the Baltimore Colts to win the 1958 NFL Championship Game.

“I know all about it,” Besselink said when asked about McLaney’s shadowy role in “The Greatest Game Ever Played.” Besselink was in Los Angeles to watch the game on television with another golfing buddy, then 49ers quarterback John Brodie, who not coincidentally was a world-class golfer himself.

“Mike bet $3 million on the game, divided between himself, his friend and partner Louis Chesler (from the resort in the Bahamas) and Rams owner Carroll Rosenbloom.” The trio had given between 31/2 and 51/2 points for the privilege of betting on the favored Colts, and Besselink noted that his friend had given him a piece of the bet for free, amount undisclosed.

Bessie, as he was known, told Brodie that he had a bet on the game, and they watched it head into overtime. Brodie told him he was out of luck, since a tie score would likely mean that the winning team would probably ending up securing the NFL crown via a field goal, which was not enough to cover the spread.

“I told him Baltimore was not going to kick a field goal,” Besselink recalled with a laugh. After the Giants were stopped in the first drive of the overtime, Unitas began the march down the field that helped install the young quarterback into the pantheon of lower-case giants of NFL lore and legend, and seemingly helped propel the National Football League down the road to a prominence that might have been previously unimaginable.

But once the Colts reached the 8-yard line, a field goal seemed to be looming. At second and goal, Unitas elected to pass, completing the heart-stopping toss to end Jim Mutscheller, who was brought down on the 1-yard line.

“Brodie couldn’t believe that pass,” laughed Besselink, who simply recited his line once again that the Colts would not kick a field goal. On third down, Unitas handed it to Ameche, who plunged in for the score, and the rest, as they say, is history.

But not necessarily the history that winds up in traditional NFL tomes. “We won every bet,” is the way Besselink finished the story. Colts coach Weeb Ewbank always claimed that Unitas had called the daring pass play, and further insisted there had been no interference in the play calling from on high.

And it’s not widely part of the historical record, but the following weekend Besselink’s next touring stop was in New Orleans, where he acted as a bagman for McLaney, picking up cash throughout the city for his friend. He met McLaney that weekend on the golf course, handing him a bag containing between $300,000-$400,000.

Betting On Birdies

2011-08-13T02:17:00.000-07:00

Money Golf: 600 Years of Bettin' on Birdies

by Michael K. Bohn

You can't play Major League Baseball and bet on a game; just ask Pete Rose. Don't try running a betting ring in the NHL, either. Want the surest ticket out of NCAA sports?

Betting's the way to do it. In stark contrast, however, the United States Golf Association officially sanctions betting among players during their games. And it's not just the pros who bet. Every man, out with his buddies, asks at the first tee, "Shall we make this interesting?" Yet there has never been a betting scandal in organized golf.

Money Golf is the first book that tells the complete story of golf's unique association with wagering and how that relationship evolved. It features anecdotes from fifteenth-century Scots to Tiger Woods and all the smooth-swinging flatbellies, movie stars, athletes, politicians, women golfers, Joe Six-Packs, hustlers, and sharks in between. It also serves as a primer for novice golf bettors, providing explanations of Calcuttas (betting auctions), odds-making, on-course games, and the art and history of golf hustling. It even highlights movies and books that include golf wagers, showing that even writers understand the marriage of the two.

Wagering on golf has been part of the game since it migrated to the United States in 1888. All of the early icons of American golf bet when they played-Francis Ouimet, Walter Hagen, and Gene Sarazen. Even Bobby Jones, the simon-pure amateur, wagered on his game. Sam Snead and Ben Hogan always had a little something on the side; so did Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, and Gary Player. Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson learned how to bet on golf when they were little kids. All the personalities, stories, and history of betting on birdies are included in Money Golf.

Michael K. Bohn is the author of "Money Golf," a history of the gentlemanly wager on the golf course, and more recently, "Heroes & Ballyhoo: How the Golden Age of the 1920s Transformed American Sports."

Bohn also has written "The Achille Lauro Hijacking: Lessons in the Politics and Prejudice of Terrorism" (2004), and "Nerve Center: Inside the White House Situation Room" (2003). He served as director of the White House Situation Room, the president's alert center and crisis management facility, during Ronald Reagan's second term. Bohn was a U.S. naval intelligence officer from 1968 to 1988.

A Conversation with Michael K. Bohn

Isn’t betting in sports illegal?

Not in golf. The United States Golf Association and the Royal & Ancient Golf Club, the two organizations that govern the game worldwide, officially sanction wagering between players.

Why has golf accepted betting, but major league baseball ostracized Pete Rose?

The game developed in Great Britain away from the antigambling influences of puritanical America. U.S.-born sports—basketball, American football, and baseball, for instance—carry the social mores of the society that created the games.

More important, principle and etiquette govern the game’s core. Golfers rely on an ancient and tested honor code to regulate matches by themselves, without the separate referees and umpires who are central to other games. This code, along with lessons about manners and standards of conduct that accompany instruction on the golf swing, steer the sport away from scandal and betting’s frequent disreputable handmaiden, cheating. Organized golf has never suffered a betting scandal.

How did betting start in golf?

Golf grew out of stick and ball games in continental Europe but began developing its distinct characteristics on the east coast of Scotland in the 1400s. From the beginning, the game pitted two players, or a pair of two-man teams, against each other with something at stake, most often coin, food, or drink.

How widespread is betting on golf?

Among the twenty-six million male and female American golfers, the vast majority bet when they play. More specifically, a 2006 Golf Digest online poll revealed 93 percent of the respondents bet at least some of the time when they played. Additionally, more than half of seventy-two teenage players (thirty-six boys and thirty-six girls) surveyed at a 2006 national junior tournament said they bet on their games.

Do women bet on the golf course?

Yes, especially at the professional level, but overall women generally bet smaller amounts than men and usually talk about it less. A 2006 survey of women amateur players indicated only a third of the women had never bet on their golf game.

Do the PGA Tour players bet on their games?

Today most enjoy a friendly wager during practice rounds before the tournament starts. Some even have a discreet side bet during a tournament. As recently as the 1960s, players freely bet among themselves during tournaments, even with bookies who accompanied the players on tour.

While playing in the British Open, some of the pros enjoy betting on themselves, a common and legal practice in Britain. No one in golf views the custom as scandalous. It’s just golf.

Among the pros, who has bet the most?

Walter Hagen, the first successful tour player, always played for money. Sam Snead was the high priest of money golf, but upon his death in 2002, that title shifted to Arnold Palmer. Palmer is as courteous and friendly while betting as he is during every part of his life, but he plays hard for his own money. Lanny Wadkins bets as aggressively as he plays, and Phil “The Thrill” Mickelson has said that he needs a sizable bet to keep his focus during practice rounds.

Does Tiger bet?

Woods bets on most everything that moves on a golf course. He doesn’t bet much, considering his earning power, but enough to satisfy his keen competitive nature. He started putting for quarters as a three-year-old, and has always enjoyed a friendly bet during informal rounds.

What is a golf hustler?

Stories abound throughout golf’s history about players who win wagers by concealing a special skill or knowledge—the “edge.” At one end of the hustling spectrum is the handicap cheat, a golfer that lies about his skills to gain the edge in a game. All golfers revile these people. On the other end are hustlers whose colorful personalities and creative imaginations obscure much of the larcenous facet of the edge. Titanic Thompson was the most storied golf hustler and his cleverness earned him folk hero status in golf.
How do golfers bet?

Players use dozens of betting games to add interest to their games. The most common is skins, made famous through an off-season TV show called the Skins Game. Played by two or more golfers, whoever has the lowest score on each hole wins a skin, the value of which the players determined at the round’s start--$1, $10, and so forth.

Another common game is a Nassau, which as a minimum involves three bets—one on the first nine holes, another on the back nine, and a third on the entire round. The value of each bet varies with the players, from $1 and up.

The simplest bet is on who shoots the lowest score for the round.

Side bets, often called garbage or trash, enliven the round, and involve payouts for birdies, sandies (getting out of a bunker and into the hole in two shots) or other pre-determined successes or mistakes. Chapter 9 of the book describes betting games and summarizes betting advice from the experts.

Gerald Catena - Golfing Gangster

2011-08-11T23:51:00.000-07:00

Gerald Catena - the golfing gangster.

Gerardo Catena of South Orange was the reputed head of the Genovese crime family from 1957 to 1972. He died in Florida in 2000 at age 98.One of the classic stories of the New Jersey Legislature in 1968 were allegations that a Newark Assemblyman wanted to cancel a hearing on organized crime under pressure from a "lobbyist" representingGeraldo (Jerry) Catena, one of the state's most powerful mob bosses.

Senate Law and Public Safety Committee Chairman Joseph Woodcock held a news conference in December 1968 to say that his aide was told by Assembly Law and Public Safety Committee Chairman Richard Fiore that he was being pressured by Catena to stop legislative proposals to create the State Commission of Investigation, and to legalize wiretapping, and to permit certain witnesses to receive immunity from prosecution.Claire Curran Johnson, a former New York Mirror crime reporter who worked for Woodcock, told investigators for the state Attorney General's office that Fiore, a 36-year-old substitute teacher and Recreation Director for the Newark Board of Education, claimed he wanted to head the Assembly panel "to stop these kind of things."

"There is a lot of pressure. You just don't know how much pressure. Jerry is unhappy about it," Curran quoted Fiore as telling her.

The Clubs

2011-08-11T23:50:00.000-07:00

Charlie Rose Interviews Arnold Palmer

2011-08-06T02:22:00.000-07:00

Charlie Rose interviews Arnold Palmer

Fortunately I was channel surfing when I came upon Charlie Rose’s interview with Arnold Palmer on his PBS TV show August 3, an excellent program that should be rebroadcast and archived on the internet.

An hour with Arnold Palmer from Latrobe, Pennsylvania.

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11823

http://www.charlierose.com/guest/view/7220
40:40

Here's an excerpt:

Charlie Rose: 18 majors makes him (Jack Nicklaus) the greatest golfer of all time?

Arnold Palmer: Until somebody shows me a better game, it makes him the best.

CR: Do you believe Tiger will break his record?
AP: No. But I shouldn’t say that. I think Tiger is as close to it as anyone has ever been.
CR: Jack has 18, Tiger has 14 you have 7. In between there’s three or four others.
AP Yea, and Tiger still has a shot at it, but…
CR: You’ve got to believe that if somebody has a game as good as he has, you can recapture it?
AP: No.
CR: Why not? 41:28
AP: I’m not sure about that. You know, once you, once you vary, then you lose that – thing that you were talking about earlier. What is it? Sometimes it’s hard to put in place. What is it? I’m not sure I know. I’m not sure Jack knows. I know what he did, and I know how good he was. But to have him describe to you or to anyone, what it was, what was that thing that you grab? I know that his concentration was so good, that he could play, and play the way it was, but I seen it wander, even with Nicklaus, as good as he was. And now when you have a disturbance in your life that’s major, can you get it back? Can you get that thing that you can’t put your finger on, and get a hold of it and choke it. I seen it in every sport – baseball players, football players. I seen them so good, and then all of a sudden something happens. It could be a psychological thing. You say, well, “I’ve done it,” and then that’s it. Then you say, “I want to do it again,” but it isn’t there, you can’t find it, you can’t grasp it. You can’t hold it.
CR: Some call that an X factor.
AP: Exactly.
CR: You don’t know what it is. You can’t define it, but you know when it’s there. You had it. Jack had it.
AP: A lot of people. Hogan. Nelson.
CR: Byron Nelson had it. Sam Snead?
AP: Sam Snead was probably a little further from what we are talking about, and had an ability that was more natural than anybody that I knew in golf. Snead was as close to a natural player as anything that ever happened. But you know, here’s a guy who says I never won the PGA, well Snead never won the Open. My goodness, if aybody, you think about it, if anybody should have won the Open it was Snead, but didn’t. Why? That X factor...

George Crump

2011-08-04T03:07:00.000-07:00

Atlantic City Country Club member George Crump owned a Philadelphia Hotel and often took the train and trolley to Alantic City to play golf. He was among the players in December 1903 when the term "birdie" was coined, and he later built Pine Valley Golf Club.

Crump first saw the land he wanted to build the club on from the train he took to Atlantic City. For five years Crump lived in a tent in the South Jersey Pines while he supervised the construction of the course, but he died before it was finished.

When a reporter tracked him down in the woods one day, and asked him what he was doing, Crump's vision of Pine Valley was described as a place where families, including women and children would play golf. Instead, Pine Valley became a private club for men only, and the course Crump built is generally recognized as the best in the world.

Willie Anderson & Alex Smith

2011-08-04T02:19:00.001-07:00

Willie Anderson with his arm around Alex Smith

Willie and Alex

Both Scottish professionals who came to America to work in the game of golf, Willie Anderson won four of the first dozen U.S. Open Golf Championships, but died young of hardening of the arteries. Alex Smith also won two early U.S. Opens. From a family of great golfers from Carnoustie, Scotland, four of his brothers were also golf professionals, including Willie, who also won the U.S. Open, and MacDonald Smith, who tied brother Alex and John McDermott in the 1910 U.S. Open in Philadelphia. In the playoff Alex defeated McDonald and McDermott. When Alex tried to console the 18 year old McDermott for losing, McDermott replied, "I'll get you next time you big lout!" And he did, winning the 1911 U.S. Open in Chicago.

Both Alex and McDonald Smith visited Jolly Jim Fraser when he was the golf pro at Seaview.

At the 1913 U.S. Open at the Country Club at Brookline, Alex Smith was at the bar in the clubhouse arguing with Ted Ray about socialism when they were interrupted by Wilfrid Reid, who told Ray he shouldn't be a socialist because of all the money he made. In response Ray punched Reid in the face and knocked him over a table.

Alex Smith's brother Willie "moved to Mexico City to become the golf pro at the Mexico City Country Club. He was injured during the Mexican Revolution. He had refused to leave his post at the country club and was found trapped under a fallen beam after Emiliano Zapata's troops ransacked the club which they saw as a symbol of the corrupt ruling class."

Willie Park, Jr.

2011-08-04T02:18:00.001-07:00

Willie Park, Jr., the son of the winner of the first British Open (1865), also won the British Open himself.

Willie Park, Jr. came to America where he became a prolific golf course designer, laying out dozens of golf courses throughout the country. In 1922 he came to Atlantic City and revamped the original course and laid out another 18 holes, which were later developed into housing.

While at the Jersey Shore, Willie Park also laid out the Ocean City-Somers Point Golf course, now Greate Bay.

Wilfrid Reid - First Seaview Pro and ACCC 46-48 - My Life in Golf

2011-08-01T15:57:00.000-07:00

Wilfrid Reid ACCC Pro 1946-1948 – [From Birth of the Birdie Chapter 5]

It was a tip of the hat to his old mentor when Leo Fraser appointed Wilfrid Reid head pro of the Atlantic City Country Club in 1946. Born in Nottingham, Enland in 1884, Wilfrid Reid won a number of major European tournaments that included British champions Harry Vardon and Ted Ray. After working as a golf professional in France, Reid came to America to work as a golf pro with Walter Travis at Garden City in New York. He frequently placed among the top ranks of the professionals in major tournaments.

Reid played in the 1913 U.S. Open at Brookline, Massachusetts with Vardon and Ray and others who were all trying to wrestle the U.S. Open title from two-time defending champion John J. McDermott, the Atlantic City professional. At the halfway mark of that famous Open Reid was tied with Vardon for the lead with 147, two strokes ahead of Ray but later faded to fourth, with McDermott and Hagen. A colorful character “Wilfrey” got into a fist fight with Ted Ray in the Country Club at Brookline locker room. He was also known for having “beaned” Winston Churchill on the head with a golf ball. Golf historian Ross Goodner said, “Wilfred Reid loved a good story and he loved to drink.”

Ried worked as the pro at a number of other clubs and helped design many courses. In 1914 Clarence Geist named him the first pro at Seaview Country Club, where he worked until he was replaced by James “Jolly Jim” Fraser in 1916. It was Wilfrid Reid who personally vouched for Leo Fraser’s required apprenticeship when Leo was first installed as an official member of the P.G.A.

Reid was the club professional at the time of the 1948 U.S. Women’s Open and his advice on how to play the course was published in the program.

“Wilfrid Reid was a great guy,” Elsie Rogers recalled. “He was a wonderful teacher. He just told me to hit the ball harder. He was fun, old Wil Reid.”

“To King, President or Pauper, golf is a leveler of all mankind. It cultivates the finer innermost senses of men, and places those in lowly places on a plain not excelled by the highest. It creates sooner or later, the one great definer, control of one’s actions, words and balanced deeds. Surely a great teacher.” – Wilfrid Reid

Wilfrid Reid (First Seaview Pro 1915 - ACCC Professional 1946-1948)

"Watch for wind hills lad, you can hear'em but you can't see'em." - Wilfrid Reid to Don Siok

Wilfrid Reid, the first golf pro at Seaview later came back to the Jersey Shore in 1946 to work at Atlantic City Country Club.

An Englishman and protege of Harry Vardon, "Wilfrey" as they called him, learned to make the old style golf balls as an apprentice to the father of Scottish pro Tommy Armour. He later accompanied Vardon and Ray on their 1913 tour of the USA and played in both the Shawnee and US Open tournaments that year.

At Shawnee, won handily by two-time Open Champ John McDermott, the tournament made headlines because of McDermott's promise that the Open trophy would not be taken by the British. But Wilfrid Reid got the attention in the locker room when he got into a fistfight with Ted Ray. At the Open the following week Wilfrie tied for first after two rounds, but fell behind. Then he went back to England for awhile.

After winning the French, Dutch, German and Swiss Opens and laying out a number of popular courses in Europe, Reid was recruited and hired by Atlantic City industrialist Clarence Geist to be the first golf professional at Geist's new and exclusive Seaview Country Club. Geist would also build the Bocca Raton golf course in Florida where his pro Tommy Armour, was the son of Wilfrie's old Scottish instructor.

After only one year at Seaview, Reid moved to the Wilmington Country Club in Delaware, while the Wilmington's pro Gil Nichols went to Cortland Park in Long Island, and the Courtland Park pro James Fraser took Reid's place at Seaview. Sports writers called it "the Triple Switch."

Reid must have taken time off from Wilmington as he is credited with designing a number of golf courses in 1917, including the Lakeside course in San Francisco that would become the Lakeside course at the Olympic Club, the site of the 2012 U.S. Open Golf Championship.

Reid also designed a number of important golf courses in Michigan, but became better known as a golf instructor, and gave lessons to famous people - presidents and Kings, but also gave lessons in life to all those who knew him.

While Reid was small in stature, one of those who looked up to him was Leo Fraser, who Wilfrie took under his wing much like Vardon had done to him in England.

Wilfrid Reid was one of those present at the first meeting of the PGA in 1916, when one of the first orders of business was to take up a collection to help pay for John McDermott's medical care. McDermott was living at Norrestown Hospital at nearly $2 a day, more than his sisters could afford.

At first they wanted Wilfrid Reid to the president of the organization but he didn't have the time, after all, he was still a club pro who primarily made golf balls and gave lessons.

Although he played in the first inter-national team matches on the English side against Scotland, he later became proud to be a naturalized American citizen and played on the American team, going undefeated in all of his pre-Ryder cup matches against the UK teams.

Wilfrid Reid came back to the area after Leo Fraser purchased the Atlantic City Country Club in 1946 and was the pro there during the 1948 U.S. Women's Open (won by Babe Zaharius).

It was probably during that time when Reid wrote this:

My Life in Golf – By Wilfrid Reid

It’s hard to believe it now, but I almost became a minister instead of a professional golfer. At least my family had that in mind for me until I was about 14. My family all played golf – my grandfather, my father, my brother – all of them – so it was only natural for me to start. I was about five years old when I began and by the time I was 14 I was a pretty good player.

I was born in Sherwood Forest – an outlaw, you know – and golf was popular in Nottingham like every place else. The Notts, the gentlemen of Nottingham, allowed us to play on the golf course. We were artisans, you know, the working men. Anyway, in 1898 Harry Vardon played an exhibition match there and after seeing him I don’t think I ever considered any other career besides golf.

Instead of studying for the ministry I went to Edinburgh as an apprentice to a golf professional. Well, this was a few years before the rubber-core ball came out and people were still using the guttie. I learned to make golf balls using molds, two halves and put them together. I used to make several dozen balls a day.

Harry Vardon was very quiet on the course. The thing I remember most is that there was a great crowd of people gathered there, and when I stepped up on the first tee I was so scared I couldn’t talk. Then Vardon came up and said, “What’s the matter, lad?” I pointed to all the people and he said, “Don’t worry about them, they’re only trees.” I never forgot how kind he was.

It was during these years that we had what we were called international matches, between teams from England and Scotland. I was on the English team seven years – from 1906 through 1913 and my record was 10 victories, one loss and one match halved. There were some great matches, as you might imagine, since England has players like Vardon, Taylor and Ray, while Braid, Herd and Willie Park were on the other side.

It’s funny how some things remain in your mind, while more important ones are sometimes forgotten. I recall looking for Ray at the 1913 Open and found him in the bar of the hotel with Alex Smith. They were having a big argument about socialism. Then I had to open my big mouth. I said, “Ted, how the hell can you argue in favor of socialism when you make as much money as you do?”

Well, Ted really got angry at that, really upset, and he punched me right in the face and knocked me clear over the table. My face was swollen clear out to the ear, and the next day I had a devil of a headache. Vardon was very upset and said he was going to withdraw, but I talked him out of it.

While I was here, I talked to a lot of fellows I had known in Britain and saw how well they were doing and how much golf was growing here, and I began to wonder if it might not be a good thing for me to make the move. As it turned out, I went back home and stayed there a couple of years, then came here permanently in 1915 and took the job at Seaview in Atlantic City.

I don’t know what I would have done in other circumstances, but the war was on and golf in Britain was almost at a standstill.

I wasn’t too happy there and was soon looking for another club. Then Gil Nichols came to me and said he was accepting an offer from Great Neck, on Long Island, and he told me to come down to his present club at Wilmington and play a match with him. He wanted to introduce me to the people at the club because he thought he might be able to get the job. It was a sort of a game of musical chairs because I took Gil’s place at Wilmington, he took Jimmy Fraser’s place at Great Neck, and Jimmy took my place at Seaview.

I stayed at Wilmington seven years and during that time I became an American citizen. I had studied the material from top to bottom so I answered all of them correctly, and when the judge congratulated me he admitted he hadn’t known all the answers himself.

Well, I’ve been here and there since then. I spent several years in Detroit and I used to spend every winter in St. Augustine. I was around when the PGA was founded in 1916, and after I went to Detroit I got Leo Fraser and Warren Orlick into the PGA. Both of them later became president of the association, you know?

I played quite a lot of tournament golf the first few years I was over here and in fact, I’ve never completely stopped, because I played in the PGA Seniors.

It’s been a good life and I wouldn’t have had it any other way, although once in awhile I wonder what my life would have been like if I had gone ahead and studied for the ministry.

THEN THERE'S THE OFFICIAL STORY

Wilfrid Ewart "Wilfie" Reid (3 November 1884 – 24 November 1973) was an English professional golfer and golf course designer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilfrid_Reid

Reid was born in Bulwell, Nottingham, England and died in West Palm Beach, Florida, United States.

Reid studied club and ball making under Tommy Armour's father, Willie, in Edinburgh, Scotland. A scratch golfer at 15, Reid turned professional at 17 and was a protégé of Harry Vardon who helped him land a club professional job at La Boulie Golf Club, Versailles, France, in 1901 for roughly five years. He later was the professional atBanstead Downs Golf Club in Sutton, London, England for roughly nine years and a successful tournament player. Reid was a fine competitive golfer despite being small of stature, and he beat his mentor, Vardon, on several occasions, was never short of confidence.

In 1913 Reid visited America with Vardon and Ted Ray where they played in a number of tournaments including the famous 1913 U.S. Open in which he tied for 16th. Reid tied Vardon for the 2nd round lead and played with Francis Ouimet in the 3rd round. In 1915 he tied 10th. His best finish in the U.S. Open was a T-4 in 1916.

In 1915 Reid immigrated to America at the invitation of Clarence H. Geist to be golf professional at Seaview Golf Club in Galloway, New Jersey after the outbreak of World War I. He later, at the suggestion of the DuPont family, became the golf professional at the Wilmington Country Club,Wilmington, Delaware. He became a member of the PGA of America in 1917 and was appointed to the national PGA Executive Committee as a vice president at large, a position he held for two years. In August 1920 he was elected vice-president of the PGA of America and he was reelected in 1921. In 1920 and 1921 he also held the office of secretary of the Southeastern Section PGA. That year in December of 1921 he attended the founding meeting of the Philadelphia Section PGA and was a member of the organizing committee. Later in 1929 he was the president of the Michigan Section PGA for three years

Reid obtained U.S. citizenship in 1921. Reid served as a professional at several of America’s top clubs, including Country Club of Detroit, Grosse Pte. Farms, MI, Beverly Country Club,Chicago, IL, The Broadmoor Golf Club, Colorado Springs, Colorado, Seminole Golf Club, North Palm Beach, Florida, and Atlantic City Country Club, Northfield, New Jersey. He defeated Gene Sarazen in the 1924 Augusta Open, won the 1926 Michigan PGA Championship and had 26holes-in-one in his long playing career. At various times he won the French, Dutch, German and Swiss opens. The border of his stationery, that he used to send to club-makers such as George Izett of Bailey & Izett Inc. his customers’ golf club orders listed so many of his accomplishments that there was very little room left for him to write his message.

Not only was Reid a wonderful golf teacher, his greatest accomplishments were golf course designing. Reid began designing golf courses at an early age and laid out courses in Europe and Britain before settling in the United States. He once estimated that he had designed 58 courses and remodeled some 43 others during his design career. While based in Michigan during the 1920s, he partnered with another club professional, William Connellan.

The firm of Reid and Connellan designed some 20 courses in that state alone. Reid retired to Florida in the early 1950s and consistently improved his game in both social and competitive rounds. Even into old age he continued to "beat his age" in score on his birthday. In 1985, Reid was posthumously inducted into the Michigan Golf Hall of Fame.

Reid designed courses in the following states: California (Olympic Club - original Lakeside Golf Club course, San Francisco, 1917), Delaware (see below), and Michigan (see below). In addition he designed courses in England, France, Belgium and Canada.

Oftentimes, his first name gets misspelled as "Wilfred" in documents, such as in the movie and book The Greatest Game Ever Played. Occasionally, his middle initial is incorrectly documented "A." as well.

Results in major championships
Tournament 1903 1904 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909
The Open Championship
T53 CUT T37 CUT T37 T35 T21
Tournament 1910 1911 1912 1913 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919
U.S. Open
DNP DNP DNP T16 DNP T10 T4 NT NT T21
The Open Championship
T24 T16 T20 26 T41 NT NT NT NT NT
PGA Championship
NYF NYF NYF NYF NYF NYF R32 NT NT R16
Tournament 1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929
U.S. Open
T56 DNP DNP DNP T47 T27 CUT T48 DNP CUT
PGA Championship
DNP DNP R64 R32 DNP DNP DNP DNP DNP DNP
Tournament 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939
U.S. Open
DNP DNP T49 DNP DNP DNP DNP DNP DNP CUT
Note: Reid never played in the Masters Tournament, founded in 1934.
NYF = Tournament not yet founded
NT = No tournament
DNP = Did not play
CUT = missed the half-way cut
R64, R32, R16, QF, SF = Round in which player lost in PGA Championship match play
"T" indicates a tie for a place

Delaware designs
 DuPont Country Club - the original DuPont Course, Wilmington, Delaware, 1921
 Wilmington Country Club - original course, now Ed Oliver Golf Club, Wilmington, Delaware
 Newark Country Club, Newark, Delaware, 1921
[edit]Michigan designs
 Port Huron Golf Club, (Reid, Connellan), Fort Gratiot, Michigan
 Indian River Golf Club, (original 9 hole), (Reid), Indian River, Michigan
 Birmingham Country Club, (Reid), Birmingham, Michigan, 1916
 Water’s Edge Golf Course, (Reid), Grosse Ile, Michigan (9-hole course commissioned byWilliam S. Knudsen)
 Brae Burn Golf Club, (Reid, Connellan), Plymouth, Michigan, 1923 (666 yard par 5 hole - "The Monster")
 Gaylord Country Club, (Reid), Gaylord, Michigan, 1924
 Indianwood Golf and Country Club - Old Course, (Reid), Lake Orion, Michigan, 1925
 Tam-O-Shanter Country Club, (Reid, Connellan), West Bloomfield, Michigan, 1929
 Bald Mountain Golf Course, (regulation course), (Reid, Connellan), Lake Orion, Michigan, 1929
 Flushing Valley Country Club, (Reid, Connellan), Flushing, Michigan, 1940
[edit]

Greate Bay Golf & Country Club

2011-07-23T17:48:00.000-07:00

GREAT BAY GOLF CLUB

The Greate Bay Golf Club has been a social center of Somers Point and Ocean City for over 80 years. First known as the Ocean City Golf Club, the original course was designed in 1922 by legendary Scotsman Willie Park, Jr., and opened in the spring of 1923.

One of the most influential of all the Scotsmen who brought the game to America, Willie Parks, Jr. was a two-time winner of the British Open and the son of the winner of the first British Open in 1860. “The name of Willie Park, Jr. is one of the most respected in the history of golf,” noted local golf writer Charlie Price.

“He was a multifaceted personality, a talented and prolific golf architect, one of the greatest golfers of his day, an entrepreneur and businessman, club maker, inventor and author,” said Price.

According to an October 19, 1922 Ocean City Sentential Ledger newspaper report, Park stayed at the historic Plymouth Inn in Ocean City while he designed the new course, shortly after he revamped the Atlantic City Country Club’s Northfield Links.

“The assurance that the Ocean City links will be perfectly constructed as humanly possible to have them is the fact that Willie Park has a world wide reputation to maintain. His latest effort must be superior to any previously attempted.”

While the golf club was originally built to lure tourists to Ocean City, it became popular with local businessmen and a major focal center of the area’s social life.

Unlike many golf courses of that era, it survived the depression with the assistance of Harvey Lake, who built the original clubhouse, a large, blue and white wood frame colonial that sat on a hill where the new clubhouse stands today. Harvey Lake, who was related to the Lake family who founded Ocean City, took on two partners, “Doc” Whittaker and Charles Zimmerman, who renamed it the Ocean City – Somers Point Golf Club.

Born in Petersburg in Upper Township on October 24, 1874, Harvey Young Lake attended school in Trenton before becoming business manager of the Ocean City Association, which controlled public utilities at the time. Lake dabbled in real estate, developed the Ocean City Bayou project (creating lagoons between 16th and 18th Sts), and served on the Ocean City Board of Education. He was an accomplished musician and an avid tennis player, but his main passion was golf.

Willie Park laid out the course on the high ground adjacent to the Somers Family cemetery, which overlooks Great Egg Bay over Kennedy Park at High banks, and on the hill Harvey Lake built his house that would become the clubhouse.

Lake also had some regulation tennis courts put in and to maintain the club he took on two partners, “Doc” Whittaker and Charlie Zimmerman. Doc Whittaker owned Holgates restaurant on the bay at 9th Street in Ocean City, while Zimmerman owned a hardware store in Philadelphia. Whittaker and Zimmerman reportedly paid $60,000 for their interest, took the course public and renamed it The Ocean City – Somers Point Golf Club.

Local bayman Buck Lashly recalls working as a caddy there when the green fees were $3. “We used to get $1.10 a round, $2.20 for a double, a bag on each arm, twice a day,” said Lashly, “and if you were nice, a buck tip.”

There were two lakes on the course, one by the pump house and the other, which was called Lake Whittaker, but was later filled in. “You could get a quarter a ball for swimming in and retrieving one for somebody,” said Lashly, who remembers the old caddy shack on the first tee by the 18th hold near the clubhouse. Walt Johnson, the groundskeeper before Butch Shurman, used a horse drawn tractor to mow the lawn.

Charles Nespy, who was a club member for 45 years, recalled the old, quaint clubhouse that was run by Ida and Maria. “They were there when I came and there when I left,” said McNespy. “They lived at the club and if they were up, the club was open. Maria tended bar and Ida cooked the best creamed chip beef, tomato and milk gravy. Everything was home cooked. “ Local bartender Vince Rennich, often recalled visiting the clubhouse after hours, playing cards, darts and pool.

Eddie O’Donnell, for whom an annual golf tournament is named, lived nearby, next to Joe DiOrio, another prolific amateur golfer. O’Donnell served as the pro from 1948 to 1960, and named his street Par Drive when the city finally got around to paving the street that runs along the course. Deer and other wild animals were frequently seen around the course until the 1950s, when they developed the Fairways homes and the Garden State Parkway came in.

“When they put the developments in they ruined one of the best hunting grounds around,” Buck related. “I remember when there wasn’t a home from Route 9 to Mays Landing Road. Buffalo Plastics came first, then a little motel, the oil company and then the Parkway came in. What’s now stores and developments behind the golf course was once all open country, and the best hunting in the world.” Joe DiOrio recalled that, “Deer used to come up to our back door when we built the bar on MacArthur Blvd in 1951.”

Eddie O’Donnell said, “When I first got there they had the last of the great amateur Eastern tournaments,” events that included such legendary amateur champions as J. “Woody” Platt, James “Sonny” Fraser, Billy Hyndman III and a young Arnold Palmer, before he became a professional.

But the most fun was had by a group of golfers that was known as the “Spinach Mob,” a group of locals who played together many afternoons. Some were nightclub owners, like Rickie Rich, who owned the Hialeah Club in Atlantic City, and Elmer Blake, who ran Steel’s Ship Bar on Bay Avenue, next to Tony Marts.

They worked nights and like to play golf all day with their friends – John Cressi, the Linwood Country Club pro, Harry Azzi, Ernie Brown, John Keminosch, Bert English, Alan Meyers, Freddie Curtis and Lou Curcio. They were called “The Spinach Mob” because they enjoyed playing for sporting wagers and gave each other nicknames. O’Donnell was “Lucky Eddie,” Azzie was “Az,” Curcio was “Cooch” and Curtis was “Checkbook” Freddie because he never won and always paid off with a check.

Curcio, the club champion from 1954 to 1958, ran the Tilton Driving Range for many years and was the handicap man for the Spinach Mob. “There were eight of us who played together,” Curcio recalls,” and we had a handicap system. Harry Elwell was the best player , a scratch player, and I could never beat him. I only won after Harry Elwell was gone.” Curcio then won five consecutive years, lost one and then never came back again.

O’Donnel said it was a slow day when the young Coast Guard enlisted man came into his pro shop sometime in 1950 and wanted to play. Eddie asked him if he was an officer, and he said, no just an enlisted man. But he mentioned that his father worked at golf course near Pittsburgh, and Eddie said it was okay, and he could play for free.

O’Donnell introduced the young Palmer to the club champion and local postman Harry Elwell, Sr., who became somewhat of a mentor to Palmer. When there paths crossed again in Florida some twenty years later, Palmer asked O’Donnell about Harry Elwell, who had passed away earlier, but who he remembered as an influential person in his life.

According to O’Donnell, there weren’t many people playing golf back then, and the club only had 50 or 60 members.

One man who stayed around into the early 1950s was Harvey Lake. He would occasionally put in an appearance on the course in his later years. O’Donnell remembered Lake playing with a single club, called a cleek. Before numbered irons were invented, you had different types of clubs for different situations, including cleeks and mashies.

McNespy also remembered Lake well. “I can see him now,…suspenders, glasses, a cap and a garter on his sleeve, just like the old time bartenders used to wear, standing about five foot six, and he’d play five or six holes with one club, a 4 wood.”

Eventually Whittaker, Zimmeman and Lake died. They had a deal with each other where when one died the others would inherit the shares until no one was left, and the last one would leave the course to charity. Trustees for Shore Memorial Hospital and Burdette Tomlin Hospital sold the course to a group of businessmen in 1971. Mr. Eugene Gatti and attorney Art Kania were the primary partners, while the limited partners included Mr. Joseph DiOrio, Dr. Nick Collova, Cas Holloway and Tullio deSantis.

They were also the principle partners with the Brighton Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City. In 1981 the Sands Corporation bought the hotel, casino and country club, renaming the country club the Sands. It remained a part of the casino corporation’s assets until Mr. Gene Gatti repurchased the course in 1991 and renamed it Greate Bay Country Club.

They made significant renovations, leveled the old clubhouse and built a new one, upgraded the course with designs by the renown George Fazio, changed a few holes around (The fairways, bunkers, greens and sandtraps remained basically the same, only then numbers changed. The old 18th became the 17th, the old 10 became 1), put in a driving range, built condos around the course and changed the name to Greate Bay Country Club.

It was under the stewardship of prolific amateur golfer Mr. Gene Gatti when the club served as host to the ShopRite LPGA Classic tournament from 1988 to 1997.

In 1998 Gatti sold the club to Archie Struthers, who began working in golf as a caddy at Pine Valley. Struthers renovated the course in an effort to recreate some of Willie Park Jr.’s original design ideas, yet maintain the course’s championship qualities. Struthers also took the course private again, and went on to design and build his dream course – Twisted Dune, which is recognized for its unique, one of a kind attributes.

Although Pat Croce is well known for being passionate about sports and competition, it was his partner Mark Benevento who convinced him that golf is good and Greate Bay a good investment and they have been managing the club with an energy and synergy that’s contagious.

To comment on this story: - Billkelly3@gmail.com

Forgotten Hero of Golf - John McDermott

2011-07-18T14:40:00.000-07:00

Forgotten Hero of Golf - By William Kelly
(Irish American Magazine - August-September, 2011 Issue)

http://www.irishcentral.com/IrishAmerica/The-Forgotten-Hero-of-Golf-125634218.html

When Rory McIlroy walked down the 18th fairway at Congressional on June 19, the TV flashed a list of six young golfers who won the U.S. Open in their 20’s since World War II.

The AP golf beat writer went on to note that McIlroy is the youngest to have won the U.S. Open since Bobby Jones in 1923, when he too was 22 years old.

Meanwhile, John McDermott, the first American to win the U.S. Open, was forgotten and unheralded. Not only was McDermott the first American to win the Open, he was also the youngest, at just 19 years of age.

He did it in June 1911, nearly one hundred years to the day that McIlroy won, and, as they are now with McIlroy, people said that McDermott had the potential of being the best player ever.

The son of a mailman, McDermott grew up in an Irish neighborhood in West Philadelphia. Against his father’s wishes, he dropped out of high school to work full time as a caddy and golf professional at the Aronimink Golf Club, just a few blocks from his home.

He first came to the public’s attention at the U.S. Open in 1910, which was held at the Philadelphia Cricket Club’s St. Martin’s course. McDermott tied Alex and Macdonald Smith, two brothers from a famous Scottish golfing family. Alex Smith won the three-way playoff but when he tried to console the 18-year-old saying, “Tough luck, kid,” McDermott replied brashly, “I’ll get you next year, you big lout.” And he did.

Following the 1910 Open, McDermott took a job as the Merchantville (NJ) Golf Club pro before being hired as the professional at the prestigious Atlantic City Country Club. At “the Northfield Links,” as they called it, McDermott rented a room in a small cottage across the street (that is still there), and took the trolley to Atlantic City every morning to attend mass, after which he practiced golf and gave lessons. They say McDermott would spread out newspaper over an area as a target, and then narrow it down until he could hit a small area at will.

The 1911 Open was played at the Chicago Golf Club. And this time Smith didn’t make the playoff. George Simpson, Mike Brady and McDermott finished on even terms. Simpson was ill and didn’t play and McDermott won by three shots over Brady.

McDermott retained his title the following year when the Open was played at the Country Club of Buffalo, beating out two other Irish Americans, Tom McNamara, and Mike Brady.

McDermott’s finances blossomed after the 1912 win; he played exhibition matches and endorsed golf balls and clubs. He also went to Europe to play. He didn’t qualify for the British Open in 1912, but in 1913 he finished fifth, the first American to finish in the top five.

McDermott was treated with more dignity than Walter Travis, who preceded him and had his Schenectady (center shafted) putter banned by the British. But there was a developing animosity between the American and British golfers, which was intensified by McDermott at Shawnee-on-Delaware in 1913.

Shawnee was considered a prequel to the Open, which was to be played a week later at Brookline. McDermott really made his mark when he played against Harry Vardon and Ted Ray, two of the greatest golfers to ever play the game. Both British professionals, they routinely won the U.S. Open, but hadn’t played in the two Opens won by McDermott, so there was the nagging question as to whether McDermott could actually beat the best. That question was answered at Shawnee, when McDermott won the tournament outright, defeating Vardon and Ray by eight strokes.

Afterwards, in the locker room full of reporters, McDermott made a brazen promise that the U.S. Open trophy would not be taken back across the pond. He was quoted extensively in the British press, and that speech put golf on the front pages of every major newspaper in America and the British Empire.

Although McDermott was criticized, claimed he was misquoted and apologized, the media frenzy following McDermott’s nationalistic sentiments created much anticipation for the 1913 U.S. Open at the Country Club at Brookline, Massachusetts. When McDermott fell behind (he finished in 8th place), it was left to American Francis Ouimet, an equally young 20-year-old caddy and dedicated amateur, to keep McDermott’s promise. The tournament ended in a three-way tie between Ouimet, Ray and Vardon. McDermott advised Ouimet to “pay no attention to Vardon and Ray and play your own game,” which Ouimet did. In what was later called “The Greatest Game,” he won the day over the two British professionals. A photo of Ouimet getting ready to putt in his final shot, with Vardon, Ray, McDermott and a huge crowd looking on, hung on the wall next to the Atlantic City CC locker room door for decades.

In 1914, McDermott tied for 9th place in the U.S. Open, his old self-confidence greatly diminished. He headed over to Europe to play in the British Open, but he missed a train and didn’t play in the tournament. Returning home by steamship, McDermott was in the barber’s chair when his ship was rammed by another ship in the English Channel and had to return to port. The incident had a serious effect on McDermott. Though physically fine, he was mentally shaken by the
accident. When he finally got home, he learned that his stocks had tanked and he was broke.

One morning at the Atlantic City Country Club where he was a professional, McDermott blacked out and was found unconscious. He apparently suffered a nervous breakdown. After that, he was institutionalized and spent the rest of his life living either with his sister in Philadelphia or in local mental institutions. He did play on occasion, however, with Tim DeBaufre at Valley Forge and others, until his clubs were stolen from his sister’s car.

One club survived. While playing with a stranger, he borrowed a club from his playing companion, liked it, and was allowed to keep it. In return, he gave up an old wooden mashie, saying to his incredulous playing partner, “That club helped me win two U.S. Open championships.”

Besides his sisters, Gertrude and Alice, Atlantic City Country Club owner Leo Fraser also made sure McDermott was taken care of in his later years. Fraser invited him to visit the club and named the McDermott Room after him. In return, McDermott’s sisters gave Fraser one of his U.S. Open championship medals, valued at $40,000, which the Fraser family donated to the USGA, and is now on display at the USGA museum in Far Hills, New Jersey.

When the 1971 U.S. Open was held in Philadelphia at the Merion Country Club, McDermott’s sister left him alone in the clubhouse where a young assistant pro, Bill Pappa, thought John was in the way and ordered him out of the pro shop.

As it was later reported, “In 1971, Arnold Palmer, while playing the U.S. Open at Merion Golf Club, noticed a shambling old man being ejected from the lobby. Palmer recognized him as John McDermott who, in 1911, had been the first American to win the U.S. Open." Tossing out such a man wouldn’t do, decided Palmer, who shooed away club employees and escorted McDermott back inside. “They talked golfer to golfer, champion to champion,” wrote golf historian John Coyne, “and Palmer then arranged for McDermott to stay at the tournament as his special guest.”

Two months later McDermott died in his sleep at his sister’s home in Philadelphia.

Interview with Golf Course Architect Tom Doak

2011-07-18T10:10:00.000-07:00

Golf Course Architect Tom Doak, who restored the Atlantic City Country Club course, as well as Shawnee-on-Delaware and many other classic courses, talks about his job with Bill Kelly.

Bill Kelly One on One with Tom Doak
Interview with Tom Doak. April 1, 2000

Bill Kelly: What sparked your interest in the game of golf, and when did you know that you wanted to be a golf course architect?

Tom Doak: I started playing golf when I was ten – my dad started taking us to his business conventions, which were often at golf resorts. Harbour Town, Pinehurst, and Pebble Beach were some of the first courses I saw, and they were so different than the little public courses near my home, that I became interested in why.

BK: You worked at St. Andrews. What did you learn there?

TD: I had a scholarship the year I graduated from Cornell to spend a year studying the golf courses in the British Isles, and spent the first two months of it in St. Andrews, caddying on the Old Course. I learned a ton there. The Old Course is the most interesting I’ve seen, probably because no one designed it.

You can’t just aim for the middle of the fairway – there’s a lot of short grass, but there are bunkers strewn all through it, so you have to learn the course and decide where it is best for you to aim. On some holes, your ideal spot will be totally different than your partner’s, who hits it 30 yards further.

BK: What is the basic difference between British Isle links courses and the basic American course?

TD: The main difference between British and American courses is attitude. British links are natural in origin, so their scruffiness is accepted as part of the game; if you get a bad bounce, you have to take it in stride. Most golf is played between friends or fellow club-members, in match play. Americans take their medal scores much more seriously – and, as a result, our golfers want their courses to be designed “fair” and maintained perfectly so they never get a bad break.

BK: When you came back you worked for Pete Dye; what did you learn then?

TD: I was lucky enough to hang around Pete Dye [note: not “Peter”; his actual name is Paul, but everyone calls him Pete] for three years after I got back from overseas, working on the construction of courses from Hilton Head to Palm Springs. Pete doesn’t just draw his courses and let someone else build them – he gets out there with the crew and redesigns them in the field. He spends a lot more time thinking about each contour and each bunker than most other architects do; and he can try our new ideas in the dirt, knowing that he can always soften them if he’s worried that they are too difficult. Most architects are afraid to take those sorts of chances, because they don’t know how their drawings will come out. That’s why Pete’s designs are more original, and more interesting.

BK: You seem to have some radical opinions on different aspects of the game. Could you comment briefly on what you think about a few of them?

TD: A lot of architects think I’m a radical, and yet Ben Crenshaw calls me a preservationist. Is it possible to be both?

I think it is, because golf architecture has changed so much over the past fifty years. It’s so competitive in the current boom, and it’s easy to move earth today, and the average client has so much ego tied up in his project, that it’s just very easy to get carried away with your design and bui9ld a course that’s too difficult and too expensive for the average golfer.

The old courses are much simpler – and they used what the land offered. That doesn’t mean they were easy; the great architects build challenge into their designs, because a course has to be challenging to be interesting.

But they did it by building three feet of slope into a green, not by building a three-acre lake in front of it.

BK: What makes a great course great?

TD: Great courses have a great variety of holes, a beautiful setting, and a style of their own.

BK: What about the restoration efforts on historic courses?

TD: I believe that the best courses of the master designers should be preserved; but I found out when traveling around this country that few are left intact. We have participated in the restoration of a few prominent courses, like Garden City and Pasatiempo. But restoration is a tricky thing – it’s still up to the present-day architect to determine what needs to be done, and different designers can produce very different results. I’m afraid the main reason for its current popularity is that it’s easier to sell the membershi8p on “restoration” than it would be to “change” their beloved old course.

BK: What is the role of the greens committee?

TD: The role of the greens committee should be to respond to the membership’s concerns about the course and to educate the membership on the design and maintenance of the course. Too many greens committee have it backwards – they’re so concerned with leaving the course better than they found it, that they try to tell the superintendent (and sometimes the architect) how to do their jobs.

BK: What is the biggest threat to the game of golf today?

TD: I think the biggest threat to the game is the rising cost of play. Of all the new courses being built, probably 90% are intended to be “high-end” courses with green fees between $50 and $100. That’s pretty steep for a beginning golfer, and it’s out of the question for juniors. When I started playing, it cost $1 per round for me to play our hometown municipal course, and $40 to play Pebble Beach. Most golf courses are too busy trying to make every last dollar to worry about who’s going to pay them ten years from now.

BK: Can groundskeepers succeed without using excessive chemicals?

TD: The best golf course superintendents keep their grass healthy. If they know how to do that, they won’t need much in the way of chemical input. The best managers will become ever more valuable as environmental regulations limit their alternatives.

BK: You call your company “Renaissance Golf.” Is there a real golf renaissance going on and what’s it all about, more money, or a return to the roots of the game?

TD: When I named the company ten years ago, I didn’t expect the boom that was coming. The name was more of a play on the “Renaissance man” ideal that we were involved in every aspect of the business, from designing new courses to restoring old ones, from project management to running the bulldozers, and even to golf writing and photography. There has unquestionably been a great boom of interest in golf course architecture in the past few years, and not just because there are so many Tour pros moonlighting as designers. There are a lot of talented people out there building courses in all sorts of different styles. If I’ve accomplished anything, it’s been to remind people that great courses are first and foremost a product of a great site. The most influential courses of this decade – Sand Hills and Bandon Dunes – weren’t built because of a market study; they were built because the land was ideally suited to golf, just like the original links of Scotland were.

BK: How did you hook up with the Atlantic City Country Club?

TD: We were one of several firms interviewed by Hilton after they acquired the course. I think we were on their list because of our reputation for restoration work in the New York area; but I think we got the job because we listened to what they wanted, and we understood that this was more than a simple restoration.

They wanted to make the course more secluded from the homes around it, but open up with the views to the marsh and to Atlantic City. They wanted to eliminate the road crossings in the old layout as much as possible, for privacy and safety concerns. And they wanted to preserve the history of a 100 year-old golf course, but do it while rebuilding the course from the ground up. Every sprinkler head, every bunker, pretty much every blade of grass out there today is new, in total. Atlantic City cost more to rebuild than any of the ten brand-new courses I’ve designed.

The challenge was in treading the line between restoration and new design. This project had elements of both, and the client wanted us to keep a perfect balance.

TD: The new course isn’t supposed to be a “Tom Doak design.” It borrows a lot of its style from past incarnations – from pictures taken in the 1920’s, when there was a lot of open sand between the holes down by the shore. Several great architects had worked there before us, from Willie Park to William Flynn, and we tried to preserve something from each of them – from Park’s small elevated greens to Flynn’s “white faced” bunkering.

BK: What attributes of the course were kept the same, preserved and/or restored?

TD: The general flow of the routing is the same, although many of the greens have been repositioned slightly. Four of the greens were rebuilt with the same contours as before – the third, eighth, and eleventh [which used to be #12]. And, as I described above, the seaside and “classic” character of the course has been preserved and expanded upon.

BK: What major changes were made and why?

TD: There are a host of changes: An irrigation pond had to be added on high ground, to prevent saltwater intrusion; it’s right up by the pro shop, at the foot of the first tee.

The second green was relocated north of the road, shortening that hole considerably, and the fifth hole was lengthened by moving the green back to where the old second green sat.

A large expanse of sand was restored between the third and fifth fairways.

The fourth green was relocated to bring the marsh into play on the right.

The sixth green was moved back about 40 yards, creating a very long three-shot par 5.

The seventh green was moved forward to make a very long par 4 into the wind.

The old eleventh hole was eliminated, and the holes on either side of it were lengthened. The tenth now plays as a dogleg par 5, with the green on the far side of the pond which used to be behind it; and the new eleventh is a very long par-4, with dramatic cross-bunkers about 100 yards short of the green.

The par-3 12th [formerly the 13th] green was elevated and the left side cut away, creating the deepest bunker on the course.

The par-5 13th was lengthened by moving the green back to the left.

The 14th and 15th are now new holes, built around a new section of tidal marsh which we created. This was our most significant change; previously, the 15th and 16th were both medium-short par-4s playing downwind, and neither made very dramatic use of the marsh. The new 14th starts from a tee out on a dramatic point in the marsh, heading to a narrow fairway which dog legs to the right – long hitters can try to cut the corner and drive the green, but it’s a big carry. Then, the par-3 15th plays back into the wind to a green on another point, with marsh around three sides.

The 16th and 17th holes are similar in length to what was there originally, but the greens on both holes are now guarded by large sand-dune features, to further the seaside character of the course.

The 18th has been reduced to a 400 yard par-4 by shifting the fairway to the right and shortening the tee. Before, most golfers were playing a half-blind lay-up second shot; now they’ll need a good drive to get to the corner, and then they’ll face a more challenging approach to the green with its great setting in front of the old clubhouse.

BK: What kinds of grass were used, and why?

TD: Tees, greens and fairways are all bentgrass; the mowed rough is bluegrass, but there are also several large areas of un-mowed fescue rough in the open spaces. A new bentgrass called A-4 has been used for the greens – it’s much finer and more dense than any variety I’ve seen before, and it was selected in hopes of keeping poa anue in check. They’ll have to keep the greens fast, or this grass will get too thick.

BK: What’s the new length, overall, and what’s the par for the course?

TD: You’ll have to check with the pro shop for the exact length; I think it’s slightly shorter than before, actually. But par has been reduced from 72 to 70 so it will play harder for low handicappers.

BK: What’s the new signature hole?

TD: The third hole was Leo Frazer’s favorite, and it might still be, since we preserved it intact. The short par-4 14th is the biggest change – the tee on the point is so dramatic, nobody would believe that it had always been there, overgrown with trees. It’s a gambler’s hole – you could make an eagle if you drive the green, but you could also lose a sleeve of balls trying to make the carry. But I think our biggest success is that we’ve made several holes more dramatic, so that different people will have different favorites. The seventh and eleventh are killer par-4’s: in the southeasterly summer winds, they’ll be two of the hardest holes in New Jersey. At the other end of the spectrum, the fourth, twelfth and seventeenth are all within the average golfer’s reach, but when you miss one of those greens, it’s going to get interesting.

BK: What are the short holes and the ones most likely for someone to ace?

TD: The fourth and twelfth are both under 150 yards – I think the fourth is a bit shoorter. But both are downwind, so you may need some help from the flagstick if you’re going to make a one. You might have more luck at the 17th – the cup will usually be hidden by the dune on the right, so your caddie might kick one in for you.

BK: Was the course designed for tournament play?

TD: We really didn’t think much about tournament play in the changes we made to the design. Obviously, it has been a popular sight for the U.S. Women’s Open, and the new course would be more challenging than ever for them – but I don’t know if that’s in the cards. The one drawback is the lack of acreage – for galleries, corporate tents, parking, and the circus that accompanies major tournaments nowadays.

BK: What are the prospects of encouraging players to walk the course and maintain the caddy tradition?

TD: Because play will be limited, we didn’t build any cart paths for the new course. Players will be able to take a caddie, or drive on the fairways if they choose a cart. The caddy experience is exactly the blend of personal service and golfing tradition which the new course is supposed to represent.

BK: In your book “Anatomy of a Golf Course” you mention “grow in” time as a factor. How long will the “grow in” time be at ACCC, and when do you anticipate the course being open for play?

TD: The eighteenth fairway was the last to be planted, just after Labor Day of 1999; but the last three or four holes were set back a bit by washouts at the start of the hurricane season. They’ll sill need a bit of growth this spring to mature. I’d be happy to play the course as it stands today, but the standard today is so much higher – everybody wants it to be perfect before they open the door. I suspect that will be sometime in May (2000).

BK: What were some of the special problems presented by the ACCC job and how did you overcome them?

TD: From a design standpoint, the challenge was keeping that balance between restoration and new design. Fortunately, my “signature” as a designer isn’t a particular style of bunkering or greens, but in making the most of the land with whatever style suites it best; so I inherited a lot from the old course, instead of butting heads with it.

From a logistical standpoint, it was just difficult to do that much construction on a tight acreage. The only place to stockpile topsoil or park equipment was on another fairway; it got to be like a big shell game. And the irrigation system is the most complicated I’ve ever seen, so after it was trenched in, we pretty much had to shape all the bunkers and greens over again to restore what we intended.

BK: What is the future of the clubhouse?

TD: As I understand it, the design of the clubhouse will be thoughtfully preserved; like the golf course, it will be refitted completely, but from the outside, it’s supposed to look the same as it does today.

BK: You are pretty young, and golf is pretty old. What do you see is the near future of the game, what role to you want to play, and what’s the future of the ACCC?

TD: As a student of architecture, I’ve seen first-hand how much the game has changed over the past 100 years, by seeing how courses have evolved. Every new generation of golf courses has been longer and harder than the last, to preserve the challenge of the game in response to improvements in equipment, in course conditioning, and in the general level of play.

The problem is, all of our best old courses are on limited acreage, and they were lengthened as much as they could be a generation ago. So we have to de-emphasize length as the benchmark of design, and re-emphasize all the other attributes of classic design – bunkers which force the golfer to choose his line of play carefully, greens with enough character to make the short game as challenging as the long game, and maximizing the natural beauty and vistas of each property.

We also have to recognize that the best players in the world will continue to improve, and if we don’t want the great courses of the past to become obsolete for championship play, sooner or later we will have to change the specifications of the golf ball to counteract all the other advances in golfing equipment.

Thirty or forty years down the road, Atlantic City Country Club will need work again, to upgrade its irrigation system if nothing else. But if my design work and my writings have made an impact, I hope that this course and many others like it will still be appreciated for what they are, a test of golf that is far more than a long-driving contest.

Ike and Arnie

2011-07-17T20:12:00.001-07:00

Ike and Arnie, probably the two people who influenced the public's opinion on golf more than any other, take a break.

As President, Eisenhower played golf often, and gave the game a new identity, while Arnold made it cool and a popular spectator sport, bringing along "Arnie's Army" to the gallery and new players to the game.

Mays Landing Golf & CC Celebrates 50th Anniversary

2011-07-16T09:39:00.000-07:00

Tony Lima - Opened Mays Landing in match against Sam Snead. 1962.

Mays Landing Country Club Celebrates 50 Years of Golf

Golf saw a surge in popularity when Eisenhower was president and Arnold Palmer came along, but by the early 1960s, the best Jersey Shore golf courses – Atlantic City, Linwood and Wildwood were private clubs, so Leo Fraser sought to rectify that situation by building a first class public golf course in Mays Landing.

Leo was the son of James “Jolly” Jim Fraser, the Scottish born golf professional at Seaview, and Leo himself became an assistant pro at the age of 16 before joining the Army during World War II. As part of an outfit that saw a lot of combat, Leo rose through the ranks on battlefield promotions and left the service as a Major, which would become his nickname.

After purchasing the Atlantic City Country Club in 1945 from his brother Sonny Fraser, who went on to build the Atlantic City Race Track, Leo introduced championship golf to the Jersey Shore by brining in the US Women’s Open Championship (1948, 1965, 1975) and helped start the PGS Senior’s tour (1980).

As a PGA administrator, Leo recognized the need to expand the game of golf beyond the private country clubs and allow young people, women and the working class to play the game. To that end Leo and a small group of friends decided to open a public golf club. Leo himself laid out the course in Mays Landing, and convinced two popular touring professionals – Sam Snead and Tony Lema to play the first round of golf there when the course opened in 1962.

The match pitted the upcoming young pro with the aging veteran who won his first PGA Championship at Seaview in 1942, and with his down home folksy style became one of the most popular players on the tour. Lema would later die tragically in a plane crash on the way to a tournament.

They played even until they got to the 18th hole when Snead hit onto the middle of the green while Lima hit his ball 30 yards beyond. Although he chipped back to the green, Snead two-putted while Lima missed an attempt to tie.

As the story goes, when Leo’s son Doug Fraser was driving Lima to the airport and asked him what happened on the 18th, Lima hesitated for awhile before replying, “If Tony Lema beats Sam Snead nobody cares. But if Sam Snead beats Tony Lema, everybody wins, and it’s good for golf.”

And that was Leo Fraser’s idea behind Mays Landing, a good place for golf where anyone could play, a first class course that a blue collar worker could afford. Known as the "Best Birdie for the Buck," Mays Landing was operated for many years by the late Stan Dudas, who accompanied Leo Fraser and Arnold Palmer to the centennial British Open in 1960.

After the Fraser family bought out the interests of the other partners, they upgraded the course and built the Fraser Room for banquets and weddings.

While Doug Fraser handled the Food & Beverage Dept., Jim Fraser handled the course and his sister Bonnie’s husband Don Siok became Director of Golf.

Because their grandfather was one of the first golf professionals at Seaview, and their father owned the Atlantic City Country Club for nearly a half-century, the Frasers are known as “the first family of golf,” and they continue to run the Mays Landing Golf and Country Club as a first-class resort that’s open to the public.

"We're going to be celebrating later this summer with food and drinks, music and fireworks," says Jim Fraser. "We're inviting everyone, members, past members, officials and our many golfers. We also will have lots of fun things for the kids," the next generation of golfers.

In a invitation to club members and their friends, the Fraser and Siok families wrote:

Dear Members & Friends of the MLG&CC:

On Friday, July 29th 2011, the Mays Landing Golf & Country Club marks its 50th year in business. This would not have been possible without your continued patronage and support.

We are approaching our members and regular customers first before opening this event to the public, as we anticipate a large turnout. To say ‘Thank You’ for our success, the Mays Landing Golf & Country Club will be hosting our 50th Anniversary Celebration on Friday, July 29th 2011. The festivities begin at 6:00pm. Bring your family and friends out to enjoy the nights activities, including complimentary amusements such as bounce rides, barnyard pets, pony rides and magic shows followed by a spectacular firework show!

We are offering FREE admission to this event. A variety of food and drinks, including our Famous Fraser Crab Cakes, will be available for purchase. This special event will be dedicated to Executive Chef Rick Lafferty, who passed away suddenly on May 28th 2011. A culinary scholarship will be established in his name at the Atlantic Cape Community College Culinary School.

Again, we thank you for your continued business. Please feel free to bring the whole family, your friends and your lawn chairs and celebrate 50 successful years of business. We could not have done it without you.

Call the Pro Shop at (609) 641-4411 ex 10 to R.S.V.P. Hope to see you there!

Sincerely,
The Fraser & Siok Family

NOTE: There are sponsorships available for those interested in participating.
For details call our Pro Shop at (609) 641-4411 ex 10.

MAYS LANDING GOLF & COUNTRY CLUB CELEBRATES 50TH ANNIVERSARY WITH FAMILY FUN AND FIREWORKS
ON FRIDAY, JULY 29TH

MAYS LANDING, NEW JERSEY (July 12, 2011) – For over half a century, the Fraser family has enjoyed the distinction as the first family of golf in South Jersey, offering first-class golf experiences, delicious cuisine and memorable special events – all at affordable prices. On Friday, July 29, 2011, the Mays Landing Golf & Country Club honors that legacy with a 50th Anniversary Celebration, complete with fun and festivities for the entire family, plus a fireworks spectacular.

Festivities begin at 6:00 p.m., including complimentary amusements, such as bounce rides, barnyard pets, pony rides and magic shows, followed by a brilliant fireworks display at 9:00 p.m. by Pyrotechnics. All family activities are free and open to the public. There will be food and drinks for purchase, including Doris Fraser’s Famous Crab Cakes.

“The 50th Anniversary Celebration is our way of thanking our loyal members and the community for their support over the years,” says Jim Fraser, President, Mays Landing Golf & Country Club; and Founder/1st President, Greater Atlantic City Golf Association. “Our family remains committed to providing an outstanding golf experience at an exceptional value. We are still the ‘Best Birdie for the Buck’ in South Jersey.”

Sponsorships are available for the Anniversary Celebration, which is dedicated to the late Rick Lafferty, who served as executive chef at the Mays Landing Golf & Country Club for 15 years, before passing away suddenly on May 28, 2011. In tribute to his memory, a scholarship will be established in his name at the Atlantic Cape Community College Academy of Culinary Arts.

A Little History

The 18-hole Mays Landing Golf & Country Club was established in 1961 by golf pioneer and past PGA president, Leo Fraser, along with partners Jack Nugent, Bill Christiansen, Bill Rafferty and Bruce Coltart. Their vision to create a course that would be accessible and affordable to all golfers was realized and the 175-acre Club opened to the public with greens fees as low as $12, following an exhibition match between two of the nation’s top competitors – “Champagne” Tony Lema and Sam Snead.

By 1992, all of the original partners had passed away. The Mays Landing Golf & Country Club is now owned by Fraser’s children – Jim, Doug and Bonnie – who have continued the tradition set forth by the founding partners. Over the years, the new regime upgraded the facilities to include a banquet hall for weddings, as well as the Grille Room restaurant.

About Mays Landing Golf & Country Club

Known as the "Best Birdie for the Buck," Mays Landing Golf & Country Club provides first-class golf and events at affordable prices. It is owned and managed by the Fraser family, the first family of golf in Atlantic County and former owners of Atlantic City Country Club. Beyond the scenic fairways and greens, the Mays Landing Clubhouse is home to a variety of celebrations, banquets and outing events. The Grille Room is perfectly suited for post-round relaxation and casual gatherings, while many memorable wedding receptions and other formal events take place in the Fraser Room. Adjacent to both venues are Patios for outdoor gatherings overlooking the greens.

Mays Landing Golf & Country Club is located at 1855 Cates Road in Mays Landing, New Jersey. For information, call 609-641-4411, visit www.mayslandinggolf.com or follow via Facebook.

Media Contact:
Lisa Johnson Communications
carmen@lisajohnsoncommunications.com

Bobby Clarke's Eisenhower Tree at Greate Bay is now History

2011-07-14T09:19:00.000-07:00

Bobby Clarke with Stanley Cup. Now playing golf, Clarke took on a tree on the fifth fairway at Greate Bay and won.

Above Photo: Mark Benevento, Bobby Clarke, Steve Coates and Gary Massey stand over the fallen Fifth Fairway Tree. (Photo Credit: Performance Marketing)

Bobby Clarke's Eisenhower Tree is now History

There was a tree on the Augusta National golf course that President Eisenhower requested be removed because it was often in the way of a clear shot to the green, but the President didn’t get what he wanted. The tree stayed.

When Philadelphia Flyers champion Bobby Clarke made a similar request concerning a particularly annoying tree on the fifth fairway at Greate Bay, some club members took the side of the tree and the issue became one of the most controversial topics at the 19th hole.

While hockey is Clarke’s primary sports passion, golf comes in a close second, and he often plays Greate Bay with his good friend and Flyers’ announcer Steve Coates. Coates, also a former player, lives in Egg Harbor Township and Clarke in Ocean City, so they both live nearby and can often be found playing a round at Greate Bay, especially in the hockey off-season, like now.

Greate Bay, originally laid out in the 1920s by the legendary Willie Parks, Jr, was reconfigured a few times over the years, most recently a few years ago by Archie Struthers, a former Pine Valley caddy who doesn’t like trees either. But even after Struthers trimmed back the course, the one tree that bothered Clarke remained a thorn in his slice.

Like the Eisenhower Tree at Augusta National, the Clarke Tree stood there like a big defenseman in front of the goal between Clarke and the green, and like a Broad Street Bully Clarke took off his gloves and started a fight with the tree.

"Bob Clarke is a lefty," said Mark Benevento, owner of Greate Bay Country Club. "Even though Bob is a whirlwind with a hockey stick, that left-handed drive causes him to play right into that tree."

And Clarke isn’t alone. Also in his corner is Annika Sorenstam, the great LPGA player who was quoted as saying, “I just don’t see the point in that tree.”

In order to keep the issue from becoming too contentious, Benevento took Clarke’s advice, decided to have a contest and devised a charity fundraiser for the First Tee – formerly the Urban Youth Golf Program that introduces golf to young people from the cities who don’t normally have the opportunity to play golf.

Two funds were set up, one to keep the tree and the other to get rid of it, and the first to reach $6,000 would win, with all the money donated to First Tee.

Clarke and those who considered the tree an unnecessary hazard won, and on Friday, July 8th Clarke and Coates cut down the offending tree.

They got a tree surgeon to attend the ceremony and Bob Clarke and Steve Coates used a two-man crosscut saw to take down the tree. Greate Bay General Manager Joel Inman said. "We're working with the youngsters from The First Tee to identify the right spot to plant the new trees that will take its place."

More on First Tee: The First Tee attempts to impact the lives of young people by providing educational programs that build character, instill live-enhancing values and promote healthy choices through the game of golf. The Mission of The First Tee of Greater Atlantic City is not only to share and teach the benefits of the game of golf and its inherent positive values, but to nurture and enrich today's youth in a way that will better enable them to become productive and contributing members of tomorrow's society.

http://www.thefirstteegac.org/Club/Scripts/Home/home.asp

Originally known as the LPGA Urban Youth Golf Program of Greater Atlantic City, this organization was established in 1998 under the umbrella of the Atlantic City LPG Benefit Association in cooperation with the LPGA Foundation to introduce at-risk and disadvantaged youth to the game of golf, as well as to lend academic support to these same participants. In becoming the initial The First Tee chapter in the state of New Jersey, The First Tee Greater Atlantic City introduces hundreds of children, ages 7-17, from all different socio-economic backgrounds to the game of golf, while continuing with its life skills component that focuses on character development and academic achievement.

Walter Hagen - First American to Win British Open

2011-07-12T20:52:00.001-07:00

The Local Links to the British Open

Walter Hagen – the Great Emancipator

We call it the British Open, they just call it The Open, and they know what they are talking about.

As one of the four major golf tournaments, along with the US Open, the Masters and the PGA Championship, the British Open has many local South Jersey Shore golf connections, beginning with Willie Park, Jr., the Scotsman who won the British Open twice, and whose father won it a number of times. Park came to America in the 1920s and became a prolific golf course designer, rerouting the Atlantic City Country Club course and while he was here, laid out the Ocean City-Somers Point course, now Greate Bay.

Then there’s Walter Hagen, the first American to win the Open, not counting Jock Hutchison, a naturalized American who won the year before.

Walter Hagen was a young twenty year old assist pro in Rochester, New York when he left his job for a day to watch an equally young twenty year old John McDermott, the Atlantic City Country Club pro, defend his title at the 1912 U.S. Open championship in Buffalo.

Hagen decided he could do that too, and quit his job and started traveling around the country, beginning at the Jersey Shore, where he met James “Jolly” Jim Fraser, the Scottish golf professional at the Seaview Country Club in Absecon. Besides playing golf, Jolly Jim and Hagen liked to hunt and often went into the woods behind Seaview with the dogs to hunt deer and other game.

Hagen traveled around the country in his car full of golf equipment and “barnstormed,” putting on golf exhibitions and taking bets on whether he could beat the local pros or best amateurs at the game. When he was old enough, Jolly Jim’s son Leo Fraser tagged along, making and selling golf clubs as they traveled.

While John McDermott was the first native born American to win the US Open national championship, after sixteen UK professionals took home the trophy, Hagen won the US Open first, and then went to England and became the first native born American to win the British Open.

And like amateur champion Walter Travis and McDermott ahead of him, Hagen felt like he was treated pretty shabbily by the British. Travis, who won the US Amateur at the Atlantic City Country Club (1901) and then won the British Amateur, he refused to go back to England to defend his title because the Honourable Company of Edinburg Golfers threatened to ban his center shafted Schenectady putter, among other insults. McDermott liked Murifield, though the wind there kept him out of competition, and when he returned, he missed a train and his tee time and didn’t play. When he did make it, McDermott came in fifth, the highest any American had finished until Hagen came along.

Walter Hagen had given up the life of the typical golf professional, working the clubhouse, making and fixing golf clubs, giving lessons and setting tee times, and instead became the first touring professional, who spent most of his time on the road going from tournament to tournament.

Hagen took exception to the rules of most golf and country clubs that prevented golf professionals from entering the club house, which was for members and guests only and not golf professionals, who were treated like other club employees and not considered gentlemen.

Hagen made a lot of money playing golf, and when the golf pros at one English club weren’t permitted into the clubhouse after a tournament, Hagen took them all into town to a local pub and treated them to dinner.

Once again in England, when not permitted to enter a clubhouse dining room to eat, Hagen had his limo park at the front door and set up a table and ate dinner at the front door of the club.

Eventually, after tournaments began to give him money just to show up and play, Hagen made it a part of his contact that he had to be permitted into the clubhouse, and once he was in, he demanded that all golf pros be given the same courtesy.

Today golf pros make good money and are well respected, and for that they have Walter Hagen to thank, and those in the know often do.

Most of the money in golf is made by the touring pros, like Arnold Palmer and Tiger Woods. Woods made $75 million last year and didn’t win one tournament.

After Arnold Palmer won the US Amateur tournament he decided to get married and to support his family he also turned pro, and like Hagen, went on the road as a touring pro, complete with trailer to live in.

Years later, when Palmer and the other touring professionals threatened to break away from the PGA and start their own tour, Palmer and Leo Fraser and others locked themselves into a Florida hotel room for a few days and didn’t leave until they had hashed out a deal that was fair to everyone, and kept the PGA together.

By 1960 Leo Fraser had become a PGA official and was invited to play in the Open, and took Arnold Palmer and local golf pro Stan Dudas along with him. They also played in the French Open a few days before, but young Palmer would make his mark by winning the British Open twice, back-to-back, what Walter Hagen said was the sign of a true champion.

As one of the first golf touring pros, Walter Hagen made his mark on the game of golf, but often said to anybody who listened, “Never hurry, and don’t worry. You’re here for just a short visit, so don’t forget to stop and smell the flowers along the way.”

[Bill Kelly is the author of 300 Years at the Point – A History of Somers Point, NJ and Birth of the Birdie – the First 100 Years of Golf at Atlantic City Country Club. He can be reached at billkelly3@gmail.com ]

Sonny Fraser and the Parties at the Old Grist Mill at English Creek

2011-07-12T20:51:00.001-07:00

Bob Hope and Sonny Fraser at the Atlantic City Race Track (Circa 1949)

Sonny Fraser and the parties at the Old Grsit Mill at English Creek.

When Egg Harbor Township celebrated its 300th anniversary in 2010, the only thing that they could find still standing from that time was the old grist mill at English Creek.

The home on the hill was owned at various times by the families who first settled the area hundred of years ago, and is now owned by local lawyer Frank Ferry, but its most famous resident was James “Sonny” Fraser, local amateur golf champion and politician.

Golf came natural to Sonny Fraser, the son the golf pro at Clarence Geist’s Seaview Country Club. His mother actually practiced putting on the first hole in front of the Fraser home the morning he was born, and he won Geist a bet with President Warren G. Harding that the five year old Sonny could play a round under 100.

While his brother Leo Fraser went on to become the prototypical golf professional and president of the PGA, Sonny became one of the great amateur golfers in league with Francis Ouimet and Bobby Jones.

Sonny went on to win many more golf bets, became special assistant to Geist until he died in 1938, and then Fraser became secretary to “Hap” Farley, the political boss of Atlantic City after Nucky Johnson went to jail. With Farley’s backing, Fraser entered politics and became a New Jersey State assemblyman and head of the state legislature. With Farley and his golfing pal John B. Kelly, the Olympic champion and Philadelphia building contractor, Fraser purchased the Atlantic City Country Club during WWII.

In 1944 Sonny Fraser invited the best amateur golfers in the country to the Atlantic City Country Club to play in his first inaugural tournament, that he himself won. The following year it was won by Dr. Cary Middlecoff, and among the others to win over the years were Julius Boros, Howard Everitt, Billy Hyndmann III (6 times), Jay Sigel, Duke Dlecher and Billy Ziobro. Ziobro would win the N.J. State Amateur and the Sonny Fraser in the same year, and later became the golf professional at Atlantic City after it was purchased by casino interests.

Sonny Fraser also got legislation passed that created the Atlantic City Race Track and first legal gambling in South Jersey.

With the immediate popularity of the Atlantic City Race course, that brought 30,000 people to the track every night for thoroughbred horse racing, Fraser invited his friends to join him, not only to play golf and enjoy the horses, but afterwards to parties back at his house at English Creek.

In May 1944 Fraser married Madeline Vautrinot of Egg Harbor, a beautiful and talented young artist who set up a studio in the grist mill, which Fraser had outfitted with special window in the ceiling for light.

Complete with a live jazz band playing on the lawn, Fraser’s parties were said to be extravagant, and included such celebrities as Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, John B. Kelly’s daughter Grace (later Princess Grace of Monaco), Doris Day, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack and other entertainers who visited Atlantic City, the Track or played golf at Seaview or ACCC.

Those who were there said that the most popular place at Sonny Fraser’s parties was the grist mill, where the cool, spring water still flowed through the damn and into the grist mill pond where the lobsters were fresh and the champagne was chilled.

Fraser was named head of the NJ legislature and considered running for governor when he was diagnosed with Hodgkins disease, and died at the age of 34 in 1950.

At his wake, celebrated over the lawn of his house, Rev. Gill Rob Wilson, editor of the New York Herald Tribune, said, “Sonny drove deep into the hearts and affections of everyone who knew him. The strong hands he wrapped around a driver gripped the heartstrings of people. He will always be remembered as someone who fought hard for the underdog and for lost causes. No one ever came to him and was turned away. It is appropriate that we pay tribute to Sonny, not in cloistered halls but here in this space in the surroundings he loved. It is here that Sonny must go on and we must turn away.”

Sam Snead 1942 PGA at Seaview

2011-07-12T20:49:00.000-07:00

Sam Snead at the 1942 PGA at Seaview

When the 25th PGA championship came to Seaview in 1942 the war was on and after the tournament, the two men who made it to the final of the match play went off to war.

Jim Turnesa was already a corporal in the Army, and a lot of his fellow servicemen came down to Seaview from Fort Dix to watch the match and cheer him on, but Snead, who would enter the Navy, won on the next to final hole, up two with one to play.

The PGA at Seaview would be especially memorial for Snead because it was his first major victory, though he had won 27 regular PGA tournaments and shook off the moniker of being the “best player without a major.”

Jim Turnesa, from a family of famous golfers, went on to win the 1952 PGA, defeating Ben Hogan (2 and 1) and Byron Nelson (1up), but it was Snead who would make his mark on golf and he would do it first at the Jersey Shore.

As the son of a poor Virginia backwoods farmer, Snead would keep his accent and country folk ways as his style as he made his way up the ranks of tournament golf. Sam wanted to be a football hero, but hurt his back, and followed his older brother Homer into the world of golf, first caddying at the nearby golf resorts. Known as “Slammin’ Sam” because of his long drives, Snead had a legendary smooth swing

Snead would go on to win the PGA again in 1949 and 1950, the Masters in 1949, 1952 and 1954 and after Walter Hagen talked him into it, went across the pond and won the British Open in 1946. Although he tried, Snead would not win the fourth major, the U.S. Open.

When they came to the Shore for the 1942 PGA, Seaview was owned by Elwood Kirkman, who had taken over after the death of founder Clarence Geist in 1938. Kirkman also owned the Flanders hotel in Ocean City (NJ), where he lived in the penthouse, and Snead stayed at the Flanders with his wife.

In the tournament, which was played according to mach rules, Snead defeated Sam Byrd, Willie Goggin and Ed Dudley, who was then the Atlantic City pro and had been the first golf pro at Bobby Jones’ Augusta National. Others didn’t make it out of the qualifier, including Paul Runyan, Gene Sarazen, Walter Hagen, Horton Smith, John Revolta and Leo Diegel. Snead then defeated the eccentric party guy Jimmy Demaret to get to the final against Turnesa.

On the final round, Sam didn’t slam it, but hit a spectacular 60 foot chip shot on the 37th old for a birdie to take the win, two up with one left, which Newsweek described said, “will go down in history as the hottest ever.”

Snead also returned to the Jersey Shore to open the Mays Landing Country Club in 1961 and play in a number of senior tournaments, including the first 1980 Senior tournament at the Atlantic City Country Club. Snead hurt his back early on, and didn’t finish playing golf, but retired to the Taproom in the Clubhouse where he sat in on play the trumpet with the band.

As Sam Snead often advised, "Keep close count of your nickels and dimes, stay away from whiskey, and never concede a putt."

Atlantic City Country Club - Historical Synopsis

2011-07-06T02:08:00.000-07:00

THE COUNTRY CLUB OF ATLANTIC CITY – 1897-1997
An Historical Synopsis – By William Kelly

The Country Club of Atlantic City was incorporated in 1897 by a group of Atlantic City hotel operators who wanted to offer the game of golf to their guests. Unlike most country clubs, the Atlantic City Country Club was established specifically as a golf club, and began what became known as resort golf.

John Reid, a golf professional from Philadelphia, who was born in Scotland and played in three U.S. Opens, surveyed the Northfield site and spent a year laying out the first nine holes while the clubhouse was built. By the early spring of 1898 Mr. Reid was giving demonstrations of his long driving skills and organizing tournaments for both men and women. The first club championships were won by a husband and wife team, Mr. and Mrs. Milton Work, who were also the club bridge champions.

The Country Club of Atlantic City’s first amateur golf champion in 1898 was won by Mr. Francis H. Bohlen, who also became the first Philadelphia Country Club golf champion in 1899. Bohlen attended the 1898 U.S Amateur championship in Morristown, N.J. the same weekend Harriet Curtis attracted a large local gallery when she gave an exhibition of her skills over the Atlantic City course. With her sister Margaret, the Curtis sisters went on to win many championships and placed the Curtis Cup into competition to instigate international play.

The first time inter-club matches were organized that first year between the best players from the Country Club of Atlantic City and the Philadelphia Country Club. Other early team matches were held with the Cape May Golf Club, which while an older club, is no longer in existence.

The tourists of that day traveled primarily by train and the game of golf came to Atlantic City by rail. Atlantic City hotel guests who wanted to play golf left by trolley from Virginia Avenue and the Boardwalk. The railroad company also provided a special train for golfers when they traveled to Cape May or Philadelphia to play, and the names on the list of those who participated included the names of many of the founding members and hotel owners – J. Haines Lippincott, Frederick Hemsley, Walter Smedley, et. Al. Rather than for their guests, the hotel owners themselves took a liking to the game and played frequently.

In 1900 a group of Quaker hotel owners including some of the club’s founders formed the Ozone Club, a social group dedicated to playing golf one day a month, which they have don continuously since then. Their first match was over the Atlantic City course, where they frequently returned over the years.

Although Old records indicated there were stable fees as well as green fees, the trolley was the main mode of travel to and from the country club before the advent of the automobile. Because they wanted to get in as much golf, or drinking at the bar, as possible, they were notified of the approach of the last trolley with the clang of a bell, which rang continuously until the last trolley run was made in 1948. The bell is now by the front door.

The fifth U.S. Amateur championship was held at the Atlantic City Country Club in 1901 when Walter Travis became the first person to win a major championship with the radical Haskell ball, which revolutionized the game of golf.

If for any one thing, the Atlantic City Country Club is known as the place of origin of the term “birdie,” for one under par for a hole, the most frequently used term in golf.

Although there are conflicting reports concerning the details of exactly what occurred, three is no doubt the term “birdie” was coined sometime in December 1903, on the old 12th hole, which later became the practice green behind the clubhouse. The men who participated in that round included Ab Smith, who hit the “bird of a shot,” and A. W. Tillinghast, who became a renown golf course architect, and George Crump, the Philadelphia hotel owner who founded Pine Valley Golf Club.

In the 1910 U.S. Open, held in Philadelphia, 18 year old local boy Johnny McDermott tied Scotsmen and brothers MacDonald and Alex Smith to force a three way play-off. Although Alex Smith won the event, young McDermott placed second, which he parlayed in to a full time professional’s job at Merchantville Golf Club and within a year, became the golf pro at the Atlantic City Country Club.

McDermott replaced William “Robbie” Robinson as the club’s third golf professional. By winning the 1911 U.S. Open in Chicago, McDermott became the first native-born American to win the U.S. Open, and at 19, remains the youngest to have ever won that event. McDermott then defended his title in Buffalo at the 1912 U.S. Open, and the following year, handily defeated British pros Harry Vardon and Ted Ray at a tournament at Shawnee. After winning, McDermott gave a speech in the locker room, promising that the U.S. Open national championship trophy would not be taken across the pond by foreigners but kept in America.

McDermott was also the first American to place in the top ranks at the British Open, but a series of personal setbacks put an early end to McDermott’s career. Although McDermott played poorly in the 1913 U.S. Open, that event, held at the Country Club at Brookline (Mass.) was probably the most spectacular golf game every played. It also included Wilfred Reid, later an Atlantic City pro, and Walter Hagen, and was won by another young American, Francis Ouimet in a playoff with Harry Vardon and Ted Ray, two of the greatest players of all time. A photo of Ouimet lining up his final put on the 18th hole hung next to the locker room door for many years.

After the 1913 U.S. Open, McDermott missed a ferry and never teed off at the following British Open, then barely survived a shipwreck on the way home. In late 1913 McDermott passed out in the Atlantic City pro shop, failed to recover from a nervous disorder and never played serious golf again.

McDermott’s assistant Clarence Hackney assumed McDermott’s pro position in 1914 and remained on the job for the next 26 years, until he died on New Year’s eve, 1940. Hackney had won the Canadian Open and participated in early international matches that preceded the Ryder Cup competitions.

By 1914 golf had become a popular pastime and Clarence Geist, a fabulously wealthy Atlantic City Country Club member became impatient about his tee time. His partner, Maurice Risley, reportedly said to him, “Mr. Geist, if I had as much money as you do I’d build my own golf course.” Gesit then had Risley, a realitor, purchase land in the Absecon Highland and built the Seaview Country Club.

At first Geist hired Englishman Wildfred Reid to be his first pro. Reid would later became the Atlantic City CC pro (1946-48), but his disenchantment with the Seaview situation led him to take the head pro job at the Wilmington Country Club in Delaware, whose pro replaced James Fraser at Cortland Park in New York. Fraser then completed what they called the “Triple Switch” by taking Reid’s former job at Seaview.

James “Jolly Jim” Fraser came to America from Aberdeen, Scotland around 1907. Although he played golf as an amateur in Scotland, like many Scotsmen in his day he found work as a golf professional in New York at Cortland Park, the first public golf course in America. James Fraser married in New York, where Leo was born in 1910, and then came to Atlantic City in 1916. Sonny Fraser was born a year later. The Fraser family lived in a home just off the Seaview bay course’s first fairway, where they received many famous golfers, including MacDonald Smith and Walter Hagen. Hagen became a personal friend and hunting partner of “Jolly Jim” Fraser, and won the 1914 U.S. Open, keeping the Open trophy in America for the fourth straight year.

Hagen also became the first true touring professional and first American to win the British Open. Hagen later became a close friend of Leo Fraser, and a signed photo hangs in the McDermott Room at the Atlantic City Country Club.

In 1920 James Fraser laid out a golf course in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, the opening of which included an exhibition match between Fraser and Walter Hagen against the formidable duo of Harry Vardon and Ted Ray. Ray won the U.S. Open that year, but the Englishmen would lose their match against Fraser and Hagen, during which a young 10 year old Leo Fraser served as a caddy for his father.

The Atlantic City Country Club expanded as the game of golf became more popular. The legendary Willie Park, Jr., two time British Open champion, came to Atlantic City in 1921. he reworked the entire course and added an additional nine holes, bringing the total to 27. Park also laid out the Ocean City-Somers Point golf course (now Greate Bay). Over the years golf course architects Toomey and Flynn also redesigned aspects of the Atlantic City course at a later stage.

James Fraser died in 1922 when his car collided with a Shore Road trolley. The Frasers continued to live at Seaview, with Leo and Sonny greatly influenced by Mr. Geist and other club members. Leo once recalled how he couldn’t play golf at Seaview when he played hooky from school because he mother or Mr. Geist would see him, but he often worked as a caddy at the Atlantic City Country Club. At some point Leo Fraser met Bob Hope, who then worked as an emcee and standup comic at theaters and hotels on the boardwalk, and he played frequently with Leo whenever he was in town.

In 1926 Leo, at the age of 16, went to Michigan where he obtained a golf professional job at Saginaw. Eventually Leo returned home to become the Seaview pro while his brother Sonny became a popular amateur golfer while he worked for Mr. Geist and “Hap” Farley, the political boss of Atlantic County.

For a brief period Leo took a job in the insurance business in Baltimore, where he met and married Doris Hinton, but he never strayed far from the game of golf.

After completing his grand slam in 1930, Bobby Jones chose future Atlantic City pro Ed Dudley to be the golf professional at his Augusta National. Dudley became president of the PGA during World War II and helped initiate golf exhibition tournaments that raised money for the war effort and the Red Cross. During the war the U.S. Army Signal Corps occupied the ACCC clubhouse until 1944, when Sonny Fraser put together a syndicate that purchased the club. The syndicate included Atlantic County Republican boss H. “Hap” Farley and Olympic rowing champion John B. Kelly.

While John Creesey was the pro during the war years, Sonny Fraser brought in “Big” Ed Dudley, then President of the PGA, to be the pro in 1944.

In the fall of 1944, with the tide turning in the war, Sonny Fraser called for a tournament of the best amateur golfers in the country. Sonny Fraser himself won his inaugural tournament, which was played annually until the club was sold to casino interests over fifty years later. Past winners of the Sonny Fraser invitational tournament include many who went on to win other major tournaments, including Carey Middlecoff, Julius Boros, Billy Hyndman and Howard Everett.

After serving as an officer in a much decorated combat unit in Europe during the war, Leo Fraser returned to Atlantic City where he learned that Sonny’s syndicate not only purchased the Atlantic City Country Club, but had plans on building a horse racing track. At the time Sonny was an assistant to Farley, a N.J. State legislator in Trenton who got the race track bill passed.

While Sonny Fraser, John B. Kelly and other club members were busy attempting to bring horse racing and the first legal gambling to Atlantic City, Florida Sen. Frank Smathers complained that the New Jersey race tracks would compete with the tracks in Florida, and pointed out that there were illegal slot machines in the Atlantic City Country Club clubhouse.

Rather than get rid of the slot machine, Sonny and company sold the Atlantic City Country Club to his brother Leo, who borrowed most of the money from his friend and frequent golfing companion Carroll Rosenbloom.

On January 14, 1948 the trolley bell clanged for the last time, as the last of the Shore Fast Line trolleys made its final run down Shore Road.

After Ed Dudley left in 1948, Leo hired Wilfred Reid to be the Atlantic City golf professional. Born in Nottingham, England, Reid had been the first Seaview pro, and played in both the Shawnee tournament won by McDermott and the 1913 U.S. Open at Brookline. Reid was the pro when Leo Fraser hosted the 1948 U.S. Women’s Open, introducing the area to what tournament golf is all about, and featuring Babe Zarahas’ first of four U.S. Open championships. Shortly after that tournament Zarahias helped establish the Ladies Professional Golf Association – the LPGA.

Howard Everett, who lived in a house on the ACCC course, defeated a teenage Arnold Palmer in the Pennsylvania Amateur Championship before Palmer went away to college. While Palmer was not well known at the time, his college roommate “Buddy” Worsham came from a family of great golfers. Lew Worsham had won the U.S. Open while “Bucky” Worsham became the ACCC pro in 1950. Palmer’s college life ended abruptly when Buddy Worsham died in a car crash, an accident that resulted in Palmer leaving school and joining the Coast Guard. Stationed at the Cape May Coast Guard base in 1951, Palmer frequently visited Bucky Worsham at ACCC and met Leo Fraser, a friendship that would later become significant when Leo was president of the PGA and Palmer was negotiating with them on behalf of the touring golf professionals.

As a PGA official Leo Fraser was invited to participate in the Centennial 1960 British Open, held at St. Andrews, Scotland. Leo attended the event with Jack Nuggent, Stan Dudas and Palmer. Although Palmer would be runner up in that event, he returned, won twice and helped renew American interest in the British Open.

The American PGA however was having problems with the touring pros who wanted to break away from the PGA and establish their own tour. Leo Fraser assumed the Presidency of the PGA at a crucial time in it’s history and his leadership and friendship with Palmer kept the PGA together.

Leo also understood the need to bring more new golfers into the game, especially the blue collar workers, women and young people, who were shunned at the private country clubs, so he designed and built the Mays Landing Country Club, which opened in 1961.

Leo also continued to support women’s tournaments, and Carol Mann won the 1965 Women’s Open at ACCC, a tournament that also featured young French amateur Catherine Lacosta, who went on to become the first amateur to win the U.S. Women’s Open in 1967. While here, a club member took Catherine Lacosta to Pine Valley, where she played a round, even though women were not permitted in the clubhouse at the time.

In 1971 Leo served in an official capacity on the U.S. Ryder Cup team, and in 1975 served as host once again for the U.S. Women’s Open. While the 1975 pen was won by Sandra Palmer, it was a teenage Nancy Lopez who garnered much of the attention when she finished second as high amateur.

In 1975 the Lippincott and Leeds families, original founders of the Atlantic City Country Club, sold the Chalfonte Haddon Hall, which became Resorts International, the first legal casino in Atlantic City.

In 1980 Atlantic City was the scene of an official PGA Senior’s tournament a few weeks before the U.S. Seniors Open. Sam Snead, Julius Boros, Lew Worsham and many others showed up for the event, which was a charity benefit for Juvenile Diabetes and was won by Don January.

Although there were other similar senior events of its kind, including those t the Atlantic City Country Club in 1956 (won by Art Wall) and 1957 (won by Dick Sleichter), the 1980 tournament was the first official event of what is now the multi-million dollar PGA Senior Tour (now the Champion’s Tour). Two other major senior tournaments were also held at ACCC in 1985 and 1986.

With Leo Fraser’s death in 1986, the club’s operations were assumed and its traditions continued by the Fraser family, sons James and Doug and daughter Bonnie Siok, along with Bonnie’s husband Don, the club professional. They were all very active, not only in the game of golf, but around the club house and in the organization of tournaments and special events, including the 1997 Centennial observances, which included the 1997 USGA Women’s Mid-Amateur Championship and a centennial ball.

Jim Fraser was also instrumental in the formation of the Greater Atlantic City Golf Association, the purpose of which is to foster the Jersey Shore as a golf resort destination.

From its earliest beginnings, the Atlantic City Country Club has reflected certain recurring attributes, a few of which especially stand out. There has always been a serious commitment to promoting amateur golf, the encouragement of women’s play and a pride in challenging amateur golfers from other clubs and teams from other countries in spirited competition.

And while the club was owned by the Frasers, there was a sense of family and a members community dedicated to the continuation of the club’s traditions.

These attributes are held dearly , not only in mementos hanging on the walls, but by the club’s employees and club members, who continued the traditions in the clubhouse and on the golf course every day.

As sportswriter Ed Nichterlein said, “It would be hard to imagine a more ideally situated or designed course, or one which has more historic ties to golf.”

The Atlantic City Country Club is one of the America’s oldest and most historic clubs in the country, where history is made and where golf is not just a game, but a way of life.

[In 1998 the club was sold to Bally-Hilton hotels and casinos, and now a public course owned by Caesars.]

John McDermott with US Open Trophy

2011-06-22T02:05:00.000-07:00

Rory McIlroy's twitter photo of US Open Trophy

2011-06-21T23:59:00.000-07:00

Rory McIlroy with US Open Trophy

2011-06-21T23:58:00.000-07:00

The Two Young Micks - McIlroy & McDermott

2011-06-21T23:47:00.000-07:00

THE TWO MICKS – Golf Links John McDermott and Rory McIlroy

By William Kelly -THE TWO MICKS – Golf Links John McDermott and Rory McIlroy

When Rory McIlroy, the young Irishman blew a six stroke lead to lose the 2011 Masters, it was perceived as a lark, but when he came back and won the US Open by record margins, he was anointed the next great golf hero.

They said he could be the greatest to ever play the game.

While McIlroy himself dismissed such talk, and argued that he still has to go out, play the game and win, the 22 year old has certainly made his mark and shined the light into the future of golf.

As he walked down the 18th fairway at Congressional, the TV flashed a list of six young golfers who won the US Open in their 20s since World War II.

The AP golf beat writer went on to note that McIlroy is the youngest to have won the US Open since Bobby Jones in 1923, when he too was 22 years old.

Meanwhile, forgotten and unhearld, John McDermott was the first American to win the US Open and he remains the youngest to have ever won, as he did it at the age of 19. And he did it nearly one hundred years to the day that McIlroy won, in June, 1911.

And like McIlroy, they said that McDermott had the potential of being the best player ever. But he would never play competitively by the time he was 22, as old as McIlroy is today.

JOHN MCDERMOTT – AMERICA’S FIRST AND FORGOTTEN GOLF HERO

British and Scottish professionals won the first sixteen US Open national golf championships from the time it first began in 1895 until 1911, when a young, spunky teenager from Philadelphia finally became the first native born American champion, and at 19 years old, still the youngest to have ever won the US Open.

McDermott first came to the public’s attention at the US Open at the Philadelphia Cricket Club the year before, when he tied Scott brothers Macdonald and Alex Smith and lost in a three way playoff. When Alex Smith tried to console the 18 year old saying, “Tough luck kid,” McDermott brashly replied, “I’ll get you next year you big lout.” And he did too.

The son of an Irish immigrant mailman, McDermott dropped out of high school to work fulltime as a caddy and golf professional at the Aronimink Golf Club, which was a few blocks from his home in West Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The former Aronimink caddy took his first job as the Merchantville (NJ) Golf Club pro before being hired as the professional at the prestigious Atlantic City Country Club. At “the Northfield Links,” as they called it, McDermott rented a room in a small cottage across the street (that is still there), and took the trolley to Atlantic City every morning to attend mass, after which he practiced and gave lessons. They say McDermott would spread out newspaper pages over an area as a target, and then narrow it down until he could hit a small area at will.

He was confident of victory in the 1911 Open at the Chicago Golf Club, beating two other Irish-Americans, and he won again in 1912 in Buffalo, New York, defending his title with back-to-back victories, the sign of a true champion.

McDermott also went to Europe to play, becoming the first American to break into the top ranks at the British Open. McDermott was treated with more dignity than Walter Travis, who went before him, and had his Schenectady (center shafted) putter banned by the British. Travis refused to defend his title and there was a developing animosity between the American and British golfers, which was intensified by McDermott at Shawnee in 1913.

McDermott really made his mark at the tournament at Shawnee a few weeks before the 1913 US Open when he played against Harry Vardon and Ted Ray, two of the greatest golfers to ever play the game. They routinely won the US Open whenever they came over, but didn’t play in the two Opens won by McDermott, so there was the nagging question as to whether McDermott could actually beat the best. That question was answered at Shawnee, when McDermott won the tournament outright, and defeated Vardon and Ray by eight strokes.

It wasn’t just the way McDermott won, or by how much, but afterwards, in the locker room full of reporters, when McDermott made a speech in which he promised that the US Open trophy would not be taken back across the pond. McDermott was quoted extensively in the British press, and that speech took golf off the sports pages and put it on the front pages of every major newspaper in America and the British Empire.

Although McDermott was criticized, claimed he was misquoted and apologized, the media frenzy following McDermott’s nationalistic speech created much anticipation for the 1913 US Open at the Country Club at Brookline, Massachusetts. When McDermott fell behind, it was left to Francis Ouimet, an equally young 20 year old caddy and dedicated amateur, to keep McDermott’s promise. The tournament ended in a three way tie between Ouimet and the two greatest golfers ever, and McDermott advised Ouimet to, “Pay no attention to Vardon and Ray and play your own game,” which Ouimet did in what was later called “The Greatest Game.” A photo of Ouimet getting ready to put in his final shop, with Vardon, Ray, McDermott and a huge crowd looking on, hung on the wall next to the Atlantic City CC locker room door for decades.

McDermott later went back to Europe, where he missed a train and his tee shot, and didn’t play in the tournament. Returning home by steamship, McDermott was in the barber’s chair when his ship rammed by another ship and sunk, and he survived in a lifeboat. When he finally got home, he learned that his stocks had tanked and he was broke. One morning he was found unconscious in the Atlantic City Country Club pro shop, apparently suffering a nervous breakdown, and spent the rest of his life living either with his sister in Philadelphia or local institutions. He did play on occasion however, as he did with Tim DeBaufre at Valley Forge and others, until his clubs were stolen from his sister’s car.

One club survived however. While playing with a stranger, he borrowed a club from his playing companion, and liked it, and he was allowed to keep it. In return, he gave up an old wooden mashie, saying to his incredulous playing partner, “that club helped me win two US Open championships.”

Besides his sisters, Gertrude and Alice, Atlantic City Country Club owner Leo Fraser also made sure McDermott was taken care of in his later years. Fraser invited him to visit the club and named the McDermott Room after him. In return McDermott’s sisters gave Fraser one of his US Open championship medals, valued at $40,000, which the Fraser family donated to the USGA, and is now on display at the USGA museum in Far Hills, NJ.

When the 1971 US Open was held in Philadelphia at the Merion Country Club, McDermott’s sister left him alone in the clubhouse where a young assistant pro, Bill Pappa, thought he was in the way and ordered him out of the pro shop. While Pappa, who now teaches golf at Greate Bay in Somers Point, was notified that the old man he had just kicked out of the pro shop was a two-time winner of the US Open. Arnold Palmer recognized him however, put his arm around McDermott and asked him how he was.

As it was later reported, “In 1971, Arnold Palmer, while playing the U.S. Open at Merion Golf Club, noticed a shambling old man being ejected from the lobby. Palmer recognized him as John McDermott who, in 1911, had been the first American to win the U.S. Open. Tossing out such a man wouldn’t do, decided Palmer, who shooed away club employees and escorted McDermott back inside. “They talked golfer to golfer, champion to champion,” wrote golf historian John Coyne, “and Palmer then arranged for McDermott to stay at the tournament as his special guest.”

Two months later McDermott died in his sleep at his sister’s home in Philadelphia.

John McDermott was the first American born US Open Champion in 1911 and at 19, remains the youngest to have ever won the U.S. Open.
(billkelly3@gmail.com)

Rory McIlroy at 2011 US Open

2011-06-18T23:19:00.000-07:00

Rory Mcllroy

As Rory Mcllroy breaks all kinds of US Open records after three rounds, there is one record that he won't be able to break - the youngest to ever win the US Open. Since McIIroy is 22 years old, he will be second after John McDermott won the 1911 US Open at the age of 19.

Those who say, before he even won a major tournament, that the young Irishman could be the greatest ever, only have to look at what happened to McDermott, who they said the same thing about a hundred years ago, but who was done playing by the time he was 22.

Although there were three or four articles about in major mainstream publications, the TV and radio announcers couldn't help but trip over themselves making comparisons to a young Tiger Woods (Celtic Tiger) and Bobby Jones, but couldn't seem to be able to mention John McDermott, who still holds the record as the youngest to have ever won the open.

McDermott did it when he was 19 years old, and he did it almost a hundred years to the day of McIlroy's extraordinary accomplishment.

But when McIlroy was walking down the 18th fairway at the end of the final round, the TV flashed a list of the half-dozen twenty something golfers who won the US Open since the end of World War II, and National Public Radio announced that McIlroy was the youngest to have won the US Open since Bobby Jones did it in 1923 when he was 22.

Then the AP writer Doug Ferguson had to really stretch things when he wrote, "McIlroy became the second youngest player to win a major since the Masters began in 1934."

But why stop at World War II? Why stop at Bobby Jones? Why not take it back to the youngest to have ever won the US Open, John McDermott?

That is the same trophy isn't it? The one in the hands of McIlroy and sitting next to McDermott?

John McDermott's Mashie

2011-06-18T03:13:00.000-07:00

McDermott’s Mashie –

A long lost hickory shaft golf club, once used by John McDermott to win two US Opens, has recently surfaced, raising the eyebrows of memorabilia collectors and golf historians alike.

The mid-iron mashie, custom made in 1909 or 1910 by Anderson of Anstruther, Fife, Scotland, has McDermott’s name as well as the Anderson “cleekmark” – an arrow brand, embedded in the iron head.

The club was at one time consigned to Ed Waldron, who owned the Quality Golf Collectables store on Rt. #9 in Clermont, Cape May County. He was acting as an agent for the club’s owner, Jerome “Jerry” Moskowitz, who was interested in selling it.

This unique and peculiar club escaped theft and apparent destruction, the fate of the rest of McDermott’s clubs. The rest haven’t been seen or heard from since April, 1949, when they were stolen from his sister’s automobile, which temporarily ceased McDermott’s periodic play when he wasn’t being treated at the Norristown, Pa. hospital for a nervous breakdown.

The club’s owner is now retired to Florida, had placed the club on the market but did not sell it right away, although there were a couple of interested parties. It’s value, actually dependent on what someone thinks it is worth and is willing to pay for it, has been estimated at between $5,000 and $10,000, more than the average club from that period because of its one-time famous owner as well as its unique history.

According to Moskowitz, “I fist met John McDermott at Beverly Hills Golf Club in June 1946.” Beverly Hills, in Upper Darby, a suburb of Philadelphia, is near the Norristown hospital where McDermott was treated. Moskowitz said that when he was there the club was operated by Ted Bickel, Sr. and Bill Boyle was the pro.

“There was a slight man of about 55 years of age,” recalls Moskowitz, “who would sit on the porch with an old ‘stove-pipe’ leather bag with about 9 or 10 wood shafted sticks.”

According to Moskowitz, “If we were a two or threesome, the pro would ask us to take the old man along. His name was John McDermott. We were asked not to upset the gentleman in any way as he was furloughed each summer from the Norristown State Mental Hospital to his sisters in Upper Darby.”

“In his quite way,” Moskowitz continued, “he would relate how he won the U.S. Open in 1911 and 1912. Of course, knowing he had mental problems, we assumed this was a person who had delusions of grandeur.” McDermott was very sick, having suffered a nervous breakdown in 1914. But he didn’t have delusions of grandeur, and was indeed the first “native born” American to win the National championship, and to prove it wasn’t a quirk, he did it back-to-back in 1911 and 1912.

After a series of setback that included surviving a shipwreck and stock market loses, as well as loses on the golf course, on Halloween night 1914 McDermott collapsed in the pro shop of the Atlantic City Country Club, where he was the golf professional.

McDermott continued to play over a makeshift six hole course they laid out over the Norristown hospital grounds, and he was often invited to play at Atlantic City, Valley Forge and other nearby courses where his sisters Alice and Gertrude would take him when he was well enough. Besides playing with Moskowitz, McDermott also played with Tim DeBaufree at Valley Forge, Harry Cooper at Atlantic City, and William “Zimmer” Platt and Walter Hagen at Norristown.

Moskawitz remembers, “I played many rounds with John McDermott that summer. The elder, frail man had a beautiful swing and struck the ball very well with his ancient golf clubs. I carried an old, wood-shafted putter which I used in chipping from the fringe. John admired this Scottish club and often borrowed it to putt in from the fringes. After playing once or twice a week for a few months, I put the club in his bag and told him it was my gift to him. He got excited and insisted I have one of his own clubs in return.”

Moskowitz said McDermott then put the mid-iron in his bag saying, “this is the club I used to win two U.S. Opens. I want you to have it.”

According to the Arrow brand of Anderson of Austruther, the arrow pointed to the toe of the iron, indicates the club was made between 1908 and 1910. It was restored by Robert Junz (co-founder of the GCS, 1995) and authenticated by professionals. Although the club is for sale and individual collectors have expressed interest in it, the club should not be privately owned, but should be placed on public display as a museum piece.

William Kelly
Billkelly3@gmail.com

John McDermott - America's Forgotten Hero 1911

2011-06-05T23:43:00.000-07:00

John McDermott with 1911 US Open Trophy

This article appears in the June 2011 Issue of the Atlantic City Boardwalk Journal

British and Scottish professionals won the first sixteen US Open national golf championships from the time it first began in 1895 until 1911, when a young, spunky teenager from Philadelphia finally became the first native born American champion, and at 19 years old, still the youngest to have ever won the US Open.

McDermott first came to the public’s attention at the US Open at the Philadelphia Cricket Club the year before, when he tied Macdonald and Alex Smith and lost in a three way playoff.

The former Aronimink Golf Club caddy took his first job as the Merchantville (NJ) Golf Club pro and was then hired as the professional at the prestigious Atlantic City Country Club.

At Atlantic City McDermott rented a room in a small cottage across the street (that is still there), and took the trolley to Atlantic City every morning to attend mass, after which he practiced and gave lessons. They say McDermott would spread out newspaper pages over an area as a target, and then narrow it down until he could hit a small area at will.

He was confident of victory in the 1911 Open at the Chicago Golf Club, and he won again in 1912 in Buffalo, New York, defending his title with back-to-back victories, the sign of a true champion.

McDermott also went to Europe to play, becoming the first American to break into the top ranks at the British Open. McDermott was treated with more dignity than Walter Travis, who went before him, and had his Schenectady (center shafted) putter banned by the British. Travis refused to defend his title and there was a developing animosity between the American and British golfers, which was intensified by McDermott at Shawnee in 1913.

McDermott really made his mark at the tournament at Shawnee a few weeks before the 1913 US Open when he played against Harry Vardon and Ted Ray, two of the greatest golfers to ever play the game. They routinely won the US Open whenever they came over, but didn’t play in the two Opens won by McDermott, so there was the nagging question as to whether McDermott could actually beat the best. That question was answered at Shawnee, when McDermott won the tournament outright, and defeated Vardon and Ray by eight strokes.

It wasn’t just the way McDermott won, or by how much, but afterwards, in the locker room full of reporters, when McDermott made a speech in which he promised that the US Open trophy would not be taken back across the pond. McDermott was quoted extensively in the British press, and that speech took golf off the sports pages and put it on the front pages of every major newspaper in America and the British Empire.

Although McDermott was criticized, claimed he was misquoted and apologized, the media frenzy following McDermott’s nationalistic speech created much anticipation for the 1913 US Open at the Country Club at Brookline, Massachusetts. When McDermott fell behind, it was left to Francis Ouimet, an equally young 20 year old caddy and dedicated amateur, to keep McDermott’s promise. The tournament ended in a three way tie between Ouimet and the two greatest golfers ever, and McDermott advised Ouimet to, “Pay no attention to Vardon and Ray and play your own game,” which Ouimet did in what was later called “The Greatest Game.” A photo of Ouimet getting ready to put in his final shot, with Vardon, Ray, McDermott and a huge crowd looking on, hung on the wall next to the Atlantic City CC locker room door for decades.

McDermott later went back to Europe, where he missed a train and his tee shot, and didn’t play in the tournament. Returning home by steamship, McDermott was in the barber’s chair when his ship was rammed by another ship and sunk, and he survived in a lifeboat. When he finally got home, he learned that his stocks had tanked and he was broke. One morning he was found unconscious in the Atlantic City Country Club pro shop, apparently suffering a nervous breakdown, and spent the rest of his life living either with his sister in Philadelphia or local institutions. He did play on occasion however, as he did with Tim DeBaufre at Valley Forge and others, until his clubs were stolen from his sister’s car.

One club survived however. While playing with a stranger, he borrowed a club from his playing companion, and liked it, and he was allowed to keep it. In return, he gave up an old wooden mashie, saying to his incredulous playing partner, “that club helped me win two US Open championships.”

Besides his sisters, Gertrude and Alice, Atlantic City Country Club owner Leo Fraser also made sure McDermott was taken care of in hislater years. Fraser invited him to visit the club and named the McDermott Room after him. In return McDermott’s sisters gave Fraser one of his US Open championship medals, valued at $40,000, which the Fraser family donated to the USGA, and is now on display at the USGA museum in Far Hills, NJ.

When the 1971 US Open was held in Philadelphia at the Merion Country Club, McDermott’s sister left him alone in the clubhouse where a young assistant pro, Bill Pappa, thought he was in the way and ordered him out of the pro shop. While Pappa, who now teaches golf at Greate Bay in Somers Point, was notified that the old man he had just kicked out of the pro shop was a two-time winner of the US Open. Arnold Palmer recognized him however, put his arm around McDermott and asked him how he was.

As it was later reported, “In 1971, Arnold Palmer, while playing the U.S. Open at Merion Golf Club, noticed a shambling old man being ejected from the lobby. Palmer recognized him as John McDermott who, in 1911, had been the first American to win the U.S. Open. Tossing out such a man wouldn’t do, decided Palmer, who shooed away club employees and escorted McDermott back inside. “They talked golfer to golfer, champion to champion,” wrote golf historian John Coyne, “and Palmer then arranged for McDermott to stay at the tournament as his special guest.”

Two months later McDermott died in his sleep at his sister’s home in Philadelphia.

John McDermott was the first American born US Open Champion in 1911 and at 19, remains the youngest to have ever won the U.S. Open.

[You can contact Bill Kelly at billkelly3@gmail.com]